Ep. 313 Auditioning for Empathy with Hala Alyan

Written By Cherie Marquez
Ep. 313 Auditioning for Empathy with Hala Alyan

Writer, poet and psychologist Hala Alyan joins this episode to discuss her newest poetry collection The Moon That Turns You Back. We hear about how she thinks about form, and cultivating empathy in art. Hala also talks about her experience promoting a book during the ongoing violence attacks on Gaza, and what it’s like for her therapy patients to read her work.

The Stacks Book Club selection for April is The January Children by Safia Elhillo. We will discuss the book on April 24th with Hala Alyan.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08
Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I’m your host Traci Thomas and it is National Poetry Month, April. Hello. Today we are joined by Hala Alyan. Hala is a Palestinian-American writer and poet with a doctorate in clinical psychology. She’s got a brand new poetry collection that just released in March. It’s called The Moon That Turns You Back. The poems explore the fragmenting effects of war and displacement on individual and collective identity and memory. And she and I talked today about what’s going on in Palestine and what it’s like to promote a book when there’s a genocide happening. We also talk about being a psychologist whose patients read your work, and of course, the many many books that Hala loves. Hala will be back on Wednesday, April 24, to discuss the January children by Safia Elhillo, which is our April book club pick. Quick reminder, everything we talked about in each episode of the stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. All right. Now it is time for my conversation with Hala Alyan.

Alright, everybody, I’m so excited. It is April which means it’s Poetry Month I get to talk to a poet and novelist, but I’m super excited about it’s Hala Alyan. She is the author of The Moon That Turns You Back among other books, which we will talk about, but that’s her latest. It’s a poetry collection. It is in my absolute favorite color of pink. It’s like perfect. I just love it. Hala, welcome to the Stacks.

Hala Alyan 2:19
Thank you so much for having me.

Traci Thomas 2:21
I’m so excited. So that’s sort of like a little bullshit professional intro. But why don’t you tell people a little bit about yourself?

Hala Alyan 2:29
So I am a Palestinian American author and clinical psychologist. I’m based in Brooklyn. I do I teach grad psych at NYU. And then I also write poetry and fiction and more recently, I’ve been kind of dabbling in nonfiction and more like articles and stuff.

Traci Thomas 2:47
Yeah, I went to NYU. But though I was an undergrad at NYU for theater, I’m a Tischie.

Hala Alyan 2:53
Oh, you’re a Tisch! Oh my god.

Traci Thomas 2:56
I know everyone. Everyone hates us the most the most hateable school at NYU.

Hala Alyan 3:01
Yeah, it invokes a lot of feelings; that is true.

Traci Thomas 3:04
I went on actually, let’s be honest, Stern is the most suitable school at NYU.

Hala Alyan 3:07
I think that’s probably I mean, I probably shouldn’t be on any of this as an employee. Yeah, exactly. You say it for me. I will say I worked at the counseling center for a long time before I took the faculty position. And Tish was always like, it was like the kids that come in from tisch are like-.

Traci Thomas 3:24
Yeah. Well, I’m sure the Tisch kids are going ugh! Just like dumb. It was for research, like Strasburg or doing the method.

Hala Alyan 3:34
I was just gonna say it was just a method.

Traci Thomas 3:37
Okay, let’s start with the collection. And then I have other questions outside of that. But let’s talk with the collection. I think the thing that is most interesting to me to think about with the collection, because I think for folks who don’t know you, I should give them a little background. Like you said, you’re Palestinian American, you’ve been writing a lot about what’s going on in Gaza, about the genocide and about the violence. And, you know, you’ve been talking a lot publicly about that. But this book came out this month or last month, I guess, when we’re recording? Yes. And I have to assume you finished it long before or during the events of October 7. So how has sort of the book coming out after like this sort of extremely public and in the media moment for Palestine, which, of course, is not new, but is very, like pression, when this was done, and these were things you were thinking about prior to so sort of like, how’s that worked out for you?

Hala Alyan 4:29
So it’s interesting, because I would say that actually, a lot of the there is a, you know, I think of these as like, their poems that have been written over the course of several years. And so there was like, what happened in Hudson 2021. And so there are poems kind of from that era. So there’s already sort of, I mean, tragically, like there are already poems about Palestine and poems that touch upon some of these themes. And one of the things that I’ve done is there are pieces in here that have been published in the last few months. You slightly edited forms. So there’s like a poem called Naturalize that, I think like the ending was slightly tweaked. There’s a poem called Revision that I and my friend, Hamed Sinno and Josh Begley did like a video and like music, like sound art and whatever to that was based off of the shorter poem called [Political] Dialogue that’s in the piece, and becomes a revision of that and kind of is more placing that piece in this moment. So that has finished, I don’t think I’ve ever done that before, where like, I’ve just like, kind of taken poems that are already kind of on their way to the press, and just like mess with them. Because they like both apply to the moment and also kind of need a little bit of tweaking that I think having a book out right now in general, truthfully, for so many of us that are like so, like, you know, I think diasporically and also allies, like just so like, fixated on what’s happening, and like really kind of plugged in and trying to do the work of bearing witness and showing up and advocacy and, and awareness raising and whatnot. Like I think, you know, I am one of several people in my friend group that’s had a book come out in this recent period. And it’s a very weird experience, right? Like, it feels like, it’s not a very celebratory time in general. It’s just kind of strange to have to be in that space.

Traci Thomas 6:17
And how do you like go around doing book promotion and stuff? Like, how are you? Personally, I guess, like, reconciling, you know, creating art and putting it into the world, which I think is generally a good thing I like to think but also like, time, like you’re saying, where it’s kind of hard to be like, yeah, buy my book.

Hala Alyan 6:35
I mean, I think I’m probably not, I mean, not probably, I think I’m struggling with how much promotion and like how much marketing and how to use sort of platform and how to use social media. Like, I think it’s in a different time, I would probably be posting about it more than posting like, reviews and things that come out that I am very, like, you know, grateful for. But it just, it does feel like a sort of all eyes on has this moment. And so I have tried to be mindful of like balancing those two things.

Traci Thomas 7:03
Yeah, no, that makes so much sense. I mean, we’re gonna not do a full we’re gonna do a whole time on that. But I think I think it will come up plenty, especially when we talk at the end of the month, about the January children by Safiya. That is another book about a region that has been consistently, you know, abused. And and, you know, in different time periods. And this sort of, and she sort of is reckoning with, I think similar things that you’re reckoning with in your boat. But I want to ask you, you know, I talk a lot about how I’m like, not very good at poetry. I know that like poets hate when people say that, but I just I feel very insecure as a poetry reader. But I have through this show, I have started reading more poetry and talking with more poets about poems, and I’m starting to like, feel a little more confident after like four years, I’m doing it a little better. And one of the things that I really like really stuck with me from your collection is your use of different forms and styles in the poem, like the way that they appear on the page. Obviously, you have those like fiction, there’s like kind of choose your own adventure poems. interactive fiction, then you have like the I think it’s, it’s a ghazal. Gazelle. Yeah, you have a bunch of those. And then you have like some poems where you have like a bunch of slashes and you have, you know, so I’m just wondering for you, as you’re creating, how are you thinking about the actual form that the poem takes on the page?

Hala Alyan 8:23
So I will say this is probably not probably this is definitely the most experimental book I’ve written. And it’s the one where I’ve played with form the most, I am historically not somebody that like, like, I’m not someone that agonizes over a lamp, like a line break, you know what I mean? Or like, like, I’m sort of a bad poet in that way. But like, with, with most of what I’ve written, I just kind of write it, I just write it, write it, write it. And sometimes what I’ll do is I’ll just write a block of text and then go move it into couplets, which is, I think a lot of poets are much more like, methodical, and like, mindful about how they use the real estate of the page. And for me, it’s been, this is the first one where I’ve just been like, let’s like, break it, let’s like break some forums, put them back together. Let’s like try to do some stuff that’s like, feels inventive. Obviously, like, the interactive fiction poems you talked about? It’s borrowing from like, the Choose Your Own Adventure, like that’s already a form that exists in a different genre. Yeah. And I was just, like, hadn’t really seen this in poetry. And it would be sort of, I mean, there’s so labor intensive because you have to write basically like 10 different poems and right and, but like it was, so once I got into the swing of it, I was like, this is actually kind of amazing. And like, really, like, it’s like putting together a puzzle and like constantly thinking about how different language can like how different words can play with other words and how different stances can be put together. And can you write something that’s versatile and flexible enough to be like configured in whatever way it needs to be? So yeah, I do feel like that is probably the thing I feel most proud of in the collection. Is that like, it was it is the one where like, I just walked into forum You know what I mean, kind of unflinchingly. And even this as I was like, I’ve never I’ve never written a sonnet before in my life. For instance, you know what I mean? Like I’d never written as a before this one, like, before I wrote this like series of them. There’s one poem that’s kind of like a fill in the blank poem, like a, like, there’s a key of words, and you kind of, you know, so it’s like, I think there’s that I found those, I think, historically, I’ve told myself a story about how I really don’t like form, and I don’t really, you know, I don’t like to kind of, like, play with forms that are more complicated or take more time, I just want to sit, I want to let it flow, I want to whatever. And it turns out, I really enjoyed it.

Traci Thomas 10:37
What made you decide to do it? Like, what was it that you were like, Oh, I really want to try this?

Hala Alyan 10:43
I remember, I think that so a lot of the more experimental pieces, not the interactive fiction ones, but like the houses and the fill in the blank pieces, and whatever they were actually added on. In this, like, my, the publishers were like, I mean, I was driving them crazy, because they were just like, this book is going to press this. And I was like, I have 20 more poems, please. You know. And also, there’s like the I got my medical records from my there was a period of time where it was we had a lot of infertility and a lot of miscarriages. And so I got those medical records into these kind of erasure poems out of them. And so, like, that was all really last summer, like a lot of the pieces that are more experimental were through the summer this past summer. And I think what it did was I took, you know, I’m like, I have like a faculty position. So the summers are off. And so I had this time to, I ended up taking a bunch of drop in classes at like Brooklyn poets. And I took a I think Poetry Society, there was like a, Kimber, who, who was, but I took like, a couple of workshops. And I have not been a students in writing in a while, and it was so delicious. And like, I really recommend that for people. Like, it’s like, it just yeah, just like take, like, just take workshop. You know, I mean, some of them are just like, you drop in and you take the one or summer of like, a couple of weeks, or a few weeks or whatever, that I think that was like the summer was really there. I had the space sort of, of time and like mental space and whatever to just kind of like really be a students and like play with different forms. And I think one of the prompts and one of the classes that I took was to do, and I’d never done one before, and I was really dreading it. And then I started to do it and was like, Wait a second, I want to do 10 more of these.

Traci Thomas 12:23
I love that. Those are my favorite. There’s so fun there. So can you explain to people who don’t know what they are formally, like how they work?

Hala Alyan 12:30
I mean, I need to look up exactly, because it’s like I wrote them why but basically, you end like you find a word and that becomes the word for the for that ends every sentence of the or every couplet, right? Yeah. It’s every couplet. Yeah, every couplet, except for the first one, because the first one is like both of them. Yeah. Oh, like, you know, there’s one called “Light Ghazal.” And so it’ll like the structure is like the last two words or the first couple of like, light light and then it’s different words.

Traci Thomas 12:31
Will you read that? Or some of that one? It’s on page 44.

Hala Alyan 13:01
Okay, so Light Ghazal. I’m terrible at parties secrets and money. I want my stars sexy. Fast light. That’s prophetic. No nonsense about physics. refraction. Past light. Even in Barcelona. I can’t turn a bike. I let you change my mind. free will and wet hair. One night I let you pour white wine and drink. It’s a Gas Light. Happy now. We’re both like this. Full of risk nowhere to put it. We sidle up to strangers with dry cigarettes and ask light. I want small churches and noisy continents. I want you. I want you better. I want you move by what moves me? God, class light. You like the lion about men board with beautiful women. As the board is the prize as though those peonies were to gaslight. It’s okay. I play down. I can’t thank codes under my breath. I circle you lucky to voted planet. I see the whiskey bottle. I forecast light. I’m a better gambler than wife. The house fills with music and you’re singing dear enabler, to your truce. I know you see the moon steadfast light. I know you remember Madrid is stumble pine cones. That trip to Iceland. How every midnight had a son. How he clung to its last life.

Traci Thomas 14:28
So good. Okay, let’s talk about language a little bit. You write poems, and you write novels and they have different word counts for sure. I’m wondering how that is for you. Like is the challenge of more words more difficult is the challenge of less words more difficult. What what is interesting to you about writing a novel versus writing a book of poems like how do those things I guess serve you as an artist like What do you use them for any, any and all of those kinds of questions?

Hala Alyan 15:04
You know, I think there’s something in the writing of a poem, how do I put this, I trust my poems more than I trust any other form or any other genre of mine. And by that, I mean, I could go months, and do often go months without writing a single poem. And I don’t think twice about it. Like, it’s the one genre that I’m just like, I really am, like, it’ll come when it comes, like, there, I’ll be inspired when I’m inspired. And then I’ll sit down, and I’ll write like seven of them, you know, and then I won’t write for a while, and then we’ll come back and do you know, so it’s the one it’s actually the relationship I have, my poetry probably is the healthiest from the perspective of just like, very much hands off the rear of the steering wheel. You know, it’s just like, time to write a poem, although it’s time to write a poem. Fiction and long form nonfiction are different in that, like, I’m working on a memoir now. And I think it’s like, it, this has been the hardest project I’ve ever worked on the memoir. And I think part of that is I have a really hard time writing in first person. Part of it is like, I’ve sort of hid behind poetry and like, kind of, I had a biographical fiction for so long that like, in this case, the eye means the eye, like there’s nothing between you and the edge, just it is what it says it is. And so that kind of like stresses me out. But I think in general, longer form projects, it’s like, it just takes me so much more time. Like it’s, I mean, obviously, and also what I mean by that is like, because it takes so much more time, my practice has to be a more dedicated one and a more disciplined one. So I really find myself needing to, like, I have to do 30 minutes a day, or some, you know, like, I have to try to write a little bit every day, it’s not dissimilar to like triangle radical workout, you know, we’re just like, you kind of have to keep running, or you got to keep lifting, or you got to keep whatever, I don’t do any of these things. But from what I hear,

Traci Thomas 16:54
From what I’ve been told, yeah yeah yeah.

Hala Alyan 16:58
It’s like, yeah, if you’re gonna do like deadlift, like, you can’t just do that, and then like, wait to be inspired to do that again, right? Like the primary, the process of that is going to be different, and the relationship with discipline is going to be different. So also, because you’ll lose the threads. So there was a novel that I worked on for a very long time, or not a very long time, maybe a year and then stopped working on it for a very long time. This is during like, infertility days, pandemic, etc. Went back to it and it’s like, kind of unrecognizable now. Like now, I’m just like, Shit, I think I maybe like, these characters might be done with me. Like, I don’t know that there’s a way to revive. But I think there’s elements of the story that now I know how to put into a different kind of thing. But it’s like, you can’t just wait want to come back to something longer form.

Traci Thomas 17:40
That’s so interesting. I’ve never really thought about, I mean, I’m not a writer, I’m a reader. So I think a lot about like, finished thing. But I’d never and I talk a lot to a lot of writers about their process. But I’ve never heard anyone sort of describe it as like intense physical exercise where you really need like, I’ve heard people say, like, you need to do discipline or write every day, but they’ve never really sort of explained it in that way of like, you can’t just like become like a heavy weightlifting person. If you just like today, like in six weeks, you’re like, let me try five hundred pounds.

Hala Alyan 18:12
Yeah, like, you know, there’s no way to do it. Like it just doesn’t work. And I think I mean, I like also like the coherence of a longer because poems, I mean, what’s interesting about poems is it’s like listening to people talk about their dreams, or like, like administering a Rorschach test or something like things can seem really disjointed. But then when you’re putting together a collection, you’re like, Oh, this is a snapshot of these years of a person’s life. And of course, some coherence is going to emerge, and of course, something is going to emerge, etc. But like, you can kind of trust that, that, that it will cohere, and it will take a shape that it needs. As opposed to, I think there’s something in the like, like with, with fiction, you can’t like you have to be actively showing up, you have to be actively because you have to keep picking up the threads you put down, day after day after day, or else worrying the story is not gonna write itself.

Traci Thomas 19:02
That’s so interesting. I was just, I literally last night, I just started a nice outdoor cubes newest book. And you know, it’s long form nonfiction. And I got like four pages in and I just was like, I know that he knows where this is going. Like, I know, he knows what he’s doing. But how does he know? Like, how does he know what he’s because like, in the first five pages, it’s like James Brown, Michael Jordan, the Fab Five. Like I’m just like, what? I’m like, where are we going? So anyway, it’s funny that you said that because I was I had that thought of like, how do authors know where they’re going?

Hala Alyan 19:38
I don’t I often don’t for what it’s worth, like I I often don’t I do a lot of storyboarding. Like why pay extra to steal that from like, skip the script writing so like, I’ll do like a big like, you know, poster board and then use different colored note cards and kind of like put together like, you know, green means this character blue means this era bla bla bla bla bla especially because I often work with like, multi generational stuff, and often in different timelines, right. So there’s some structure, you know, so you have some semblance of like, I know where this character is going to be in, like 1972. And then you start writing, and then it’s like, you can’t control your care. I mean, that’s kind of the beauty of like fiction really is like, characters just become their own. I really miss writing, though, I’m like, I really want to, like characters just do what they’re gonna do, you know, they, they show up, they start sleeping with each other, they start like leaving their jobs, they start making bad choices. You know, there is some element. This is like the magic of any sort of creative work, for me at least is that it’s just as like I do for visual stuff, sometimes to where it’s like, you start putting colors, you start doing it, and you’re just like, you really don’t know, and every brushstroke or everything you, you know, if you collage every like you put a thing in one corner or you write a character. Okay, you know what the character impulsively decides to buy a ticket to California? Like, what is that thing going to do the whole story, we have no idea and like, there’s something in that I am just as just as eager of an observer of what’s going to happen next, as like any final reader is. And it’s like, such a delightful process.

Traci Thomas 21:08
I have heard so many writers say a similar thing of like, you don’t know what your character is going to do. As a reader, and as a like, very type a person. I do not believe you guys. Anytime someone says that to me. I’m just like, so I gotta start writing this book. If you have no clue what these people are gonna do. I know that it must be true for all of you who say that to me. But in my, because I only see the finished product. I’m like, of course, you knew Michelle was going to sleep with John like, hello, she entered this. Yeah, like it was very obvious you are broadcasting it from page five, like, so it’s really hard for me to like wrap my head. Yeah, to wrap my head around, even though I know like when I’ve done visual art. So I used to do these like collages with my mother in law, right? You’d start with these pieces of paper. And then you’d put like, some texture down like some like Modge Podge and then you wait for it to dry, then you’d paint it and then you’d like. And so I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t know what it would turn out as. But when I think about that for a book, I’m like, What do you mean, you didn’t know.

Hala Alyan 22:07
So I will say this, I will say this. The perfect example of that on the other end, from a different vantage point is that I once went into reading at a university and one of the professors that like came up to me it was like I teach your book in my class. It was a poetry collection. I was a great, amazing, thank you so much. And he was like, it was I think, the 29th year. And he was like, and we talk a lot about how the bird like the birds that are in the book. You know, they symbolize migration, they symbolize flight, they symbolize whatever. And Tracy, I’ve just looked at him. I’ve never written the word birds out. I don’t know anything about a bird. I know what you’re talking about. And that he looked at me, I mean, kind of gave me like, Okay, I’m gonna move away from it. Yeah, he’s like, okay, yeah. But he was like, well, there’s a lot of birds, I think we’ve heard of this book, I went home that night, or back to the hotel, and just flip through the coffee. And my God, if not every other word page, like our every, like every other poem, every three poems, there was some form of bird, and some form of flight and some sort of motion and some primitive, whatever. So I think like that, like that’s sort of the proof from a different vantage point is like, you don’t know what you’re putting on the page in some way. And that is maybe the thing I am most excited about when I think about writing. And as a reader, is what the writer didn’t know they were doing.

Traci Thomas 23:31
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we talk a lot here. And I’m sure we’ll talk about this, you know, for book club, about like close reading, because I sort of joke that I’m not a close reader, like, I’m not a person who notices like all those little things, though, there was one word that appears a ton in sophist book that I do want to talk about. But there are people who are part of like this community who are super close readers, and they’ll be like, oh, did you notice this little thing? And I’m always like, wow, I superduper wonder if the author knew. Because sometimes I’m like, okay, the author knew, but sometimes I’m like, that was a perfect mistake, and they have no clue. But they’re gonna start telling people they were like, Oh, I read about birds.

Hala Alyan 24:10
Totally, I think there is something about the like, I don’t know how much authors. No, and I also have not, I think, look, I think some authors are probably more like there’s, there’s more of a premeditated, like, there’s more premeditation Do you know what I mean? I think like, I’m not, I’ve never been, I don’t have the patience for like, I’ll just sort of be like, I’m gonna write and it’s gonna be whatever it’s gonna be, and we’re gonna take it from there. But I’ve definitely heard writers talk about like, you know, spending months storyboarding a book before they, before they even begin it?

Traci Thomas 24:41
I think it’s like a personality type to like, certain people. Like the way you create your art is just different. You know, like, because I’ve heard a whole spectrum of things, but anytime someone’s like, I didn’t know what the characters were going to do. I’m like, I don’t believe you.

Hala Alyan 24:52
I was I totally got it. Yeah.

Traci Thomas 24:56
I want to ask you because your other job is you’re a clinical psychologist. Yes. And as a professor, do your patients know that you are a writer? Do they know about like your life?

Hala Alyan 25:07
I think at this point, most people, I mean, think of it, like, if you were going to look up a therapist, or like, you know, you’d probably Google them. So I think like, it was like, when I was starting out, you know, it was like, even just 10 years ago, it wasn’t that like, like, I think it wasn’t that calm, like, people still kind of Googled each other, but it wasn’t so like par for the for whereas now, like, I think, the first thing you do, right, your therapist or you look up your doctor, you look up your whatever. So I think it doesn’t take much to like discover that somebody has like, especially if they have any sort of public facing, you know, work. So yes, I would say virtually everybody I work with knows that I do this.

Traci Thomas 25:46
Has anyone ever been like, oh, I read your poems, or I read your novel?

Hala Alyan 25:50
Oh, yeah, I’ve had inlets that, like, I’ve had patients come to book launches, which like, technically not supposed to do, but like I mean, you know, you also can’t like tell someone to leave, like, you know, I actually think it’s one of those things where if you’re gonna do something, again, that’s like Google or like, discoverable on a public platform, like, you kind of have to, like my approach with the therapy part of it is like, you have to be willing to answer to it. Like, you have to be able to have that conversation as a therapist. So like, I’m pretty, like, I’m very much like an open book, where it’s like, yes, what was it like to read this thing? What was it like to read, like your therapist talk about this? Or that? What was it? You know, right. But I think like, I also write about all sorts of, you know, like, I’ll write about marriage and sex and life and loss and grief, and, you know, miscarriages and the like, it’s like, there’s nothing that’s kind of off the table. And so sometimes talking about things that have been published has led to, like, really, actually beautiful and poignant conversations with clients.

Traci Thomas 26:46
I sort of thinking it could kind of go like a lot of ways. But, you know, like, if, you know, information about your therapists life, it’s like, well, I, I saw your medical records and in the palm, you know, the medical record poem.

Hala Alyan 27:02
Exactly. I think it’s more like, what I’m doing is more than the average bear in terms of therapy, you know, what I mean? Like, my clients know more about me than your average, like, clemency, you know? And that’s, and that’s just part of it. And I think it like, that’s not for everyone. And I, I definitely think there are some people who do not want to know as much about their therapist, like, it’s distracting. It’s whatever. So it’s never like, I think I’m pretty open. Like when people talk about like, oh, I read a thing, or I watched your thing. And we’ll have like, very open conversations about what what it was like, you know, yeah, it’s only happened a couple of times, because I think it’s sort of like a self selected group. Like if somebody, you know, if you were to Google a therapist and see that that therapist is also an actor, right? Or is also a musician or whatever. Like, if that’s not what you’re looking for something about that makes you uncomfortable, you’re probably not going to pursue, right, you know, so it’s like, it’s like the people that come in, by the time they come in the door, they’ve probably already done a little bit of like, recursion.

Traci Thomas 27:57
They feel like it’s a good fit. Yeah, it’s just so interesting. Thinking about like, because as I was reading this, I was like, she’s got students, she’s got patients out there.

Hala Alyan 28:08
I mean, it’s all like, very, yeah, it’s actually kind of lovely in a in a weird way, because there’s no, I think I had I spent my youth being very, I’m only thinking about this No, actually, that I think I spent my youth like my childhood in my like adolescence as a very, sort of a pathological liar. To be honest, I like was always kind of just like, was always sort of very secretive and would like tell half truths and whatever. There’s something kind of beautiful about kind of having a rise out of adulthood, where it’s just sort of like, everything’s in the open. Everything is like fodder. Everything can be discussed, everything can be written about.

Traci Thomas 28:43
Yeah, I want to talk about your piece in The New York Times, I think it was an audio essay about like, auditioning for empathy. I read it, I didn’t listen to it. But so I can’t remember, was it? I think it was an audio.

Hala Alyan 28:56
it was both. They read the transcript and they turned it into Yeah, like, okay, okay, that’s an audio thing as well.

Traci Thomas 29:02
Would you just talk about this idea of like auditioning for empathy, I found it to be really interesting. And I’m sort of I sort of am just curious to hear you kind of talk a little bit about it.

Hala Alyan 29:12
Yeah, of course. I mean, I think like, you know, the groups of people that have to audition for empathy are often the groups of people that have like, experienced profound levels of dehumanization. And so in this moment on this topic, it was related to, obviously Palestinians, but I think that’s something we’ve seen, like in our country, we see it around like black communities, we see it around different brown communities, queer communities, like I think there’s there’s a way in which marginalization like groups that are marginalized and have historically been oppressed. You know, I mean, again, it’s hard to oppress people if you haven’t dehumanize them. The dehumanization is sort of crucial in the in the process of enacting injustice, which is why the reverse of that is crucial in the process of enacting justice, right? Being able to identify it, point at it, start to undo it start to challenge it. And so the piece was just about was the up, you know, my vantage point as a Palestinian American that’s lived, let’s sort of have this interesting thing where I didn’t I wasn’t just raised here. You know, like, I know a lot of people that were like here during 911, as Arabs, or as Muslims or, you know, had sort of these experiences. I was in Beirut during that time I was in Lebanon, and I, we, you know, I spent the first four years of my life in Kuwait, and then like the Midwest, and then middle and high school and college was in different parts of the Arab world, and then came back for grad school. So like, I’ve had the experience of inhabiting an identity that like, was a was like a non negotiable, one in a lot of places. And then coming as an adult, essentially here, where it was suddenly, like, challenge questions and like demoed it, you know what I mean? So like, I think that like, it’s kind of writing about what what it’s like to watch Palestinians kind of have to constantly sort of sink for their supper, so to speak, or sink for empathy, or try to get like, yeah, just kind of like, yeah.

Traci Thomas 30:55
In the piece, you talk about how people look at your book events, or, you know, would be like, Oh, you really humanized, like, the Palestinians or whatever. And you talk about like, well, you know, your response is sort of you maybe not to them, but in your head at least is like, well, what were they? What were they before I did that? And I’m wondering like, that was your first novel that that you were referring to when you wrote salt houses? Yeah. But you know, since then, you’ve written another novel you’ve written as poetry collection. Do you feel differently about like your job as an artist as far as like humanizing? Do you feel like you want to buck up against that? Like, are you trying to subvert this idea that like, your job as a Palestinian American writer, is to humanize Palestinian people? Or do you embrace that sort of obligation?

Hala Alyan 31:44
I mean, it’s really interesting, because I think I write I have been lucky thus far, in that the stories I have felt drawn to tell happened to also overlap with this thing that I do feel strongly about, which is like representation and write and, and people who know and experience being the ones that write it, you know, so the novel that I once I finished this memorial that’s literally sapping me of life. Like, the project that I want to go to is this is I just like, had this idea years ago. And it’s like, kind of stuck with me as a woman who is basically like, you know, goes back to try to figure out in her adulthood, what happened to her college roommate who was murdered, who was found murdered during their senior year, you know, so like, it’s kind of like thriller re, it’s sort of has a mystery element to it, right? never written anything like that before. I’ve never thought about writing a sci fi before. Like, I like I think that will be and it has an element of like, you know, it talks about Aerobus. It talks about whiteness, it talks about what it is to sort of, like, try on different identities and Co Op identities and whatever. But it’s, but it’s certainly taking me in a different, like, will take me in a different direction. And I don’t know what it will feel like to do that. I don’t know if it’ll feel like I’m sort of, you know, like I should be, I should keep writing the multigenerational stories. Like I think that I think the multigenerational like Arab family story is sort of my like, like, that’s my jet. Like, I kind of love reading them. I love writing them, I love thinking about them. But there is something, you know, like, there is something kind of liberating about being able to say like, regardless of your identity, you can go tell a different kind of story. That’s okay. And you can trust that the stories around the identity and around the history will still be there to tell and also that other people will be telling them to, like this thing about representation as if there’s good enough representation that no one person feels like they have to be an ambassador of an experience.

Traci Thomas 33:35
Right, right. That’s right. Okay, I didn’t prep you for this. And I know that you have a little bit of a fever, so don’t yell at me. But you’re gonna have to use your brain a little bit. Okay. I love don’t fight me. This is called Ask the stacks people write in and they ask for book recommendations. They email us this x of the stacks. podcast.com send yours in people because we’re running low. This one comes from Melissa. And she says I love books that show a great appreciation for cities, books, and in places like New York City, Chicago, and most especially Los Angeles, where the city plays a major role. Those books are always fun for me. They can be nonfiction like the Devil in the White City or fiction, like a recent read American mermaid. Just give me some description of the architecture action on the city streets or a moment in the city’s history, including present day and I’m a happy reader. Do you have any books that stood out to you or the city setting really came alive? So the first one that popped the first thing that came to my head was nonfiction which is a book called people who eat darkness by Richard Lloyd Perry. It’s a true book. And it’s about a murder in a murder of like a white girl in Japan. And it’s in this one neighborhood in Japan that I actually read the book while on my trip to Japan and it turned out our hotel was in that neighborhood. So like this This book is like very seared into my brain. Like we went past the police station they talk about Wow. Yeah, it was really great. So that’s my first one. You only have to do one holla I’m going to do three. My second one is. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Hala Alyan 35:15
No, I was just gonna say that mine the one that’s coming up with Sabrina & Corina. It’s like, it’s there’s short stories, and they’re mostly the protagonist are mostly like women and femmes and they take their it’s like a lot of Latinas, often of indigenous descent within America, like the West in the southwest. And so yeah, really like, like the, that landscape that part of the country that like, the relationship between the land and like the stories that unfold is incredibly salient in that.

Traci Thomas 35:52
Oh, I love that. Okay, I have two more my two arches, all of mine are nonfiction. All right. I am who I am. One is a book that comes out later this month later in April. It’s called Everest, Inc. And it’s about Mount Everest. I know that’s not a city, but you really get a sense of the mountain and the people climbing it, and it just feels so like site specific. There are some issues with the book, as far as how the Sherpa people are talked about. Not great, not great. But it’s a very interesting, well researched book that I you know, as a kind of discerning reader, I was able to be like, okay, the author’s getting in my way here, but it’s, you know, like, sometimes you can do that a little bit. It doesn’t, it just feels like a little, little dated Sherpa representation, okay. Don’t love. And then my third book, which I haven’t finished yet, I just said I was in the throes of reading is the new Hanif book. It’s all about Columbus, Ohio, and Ohio.

Hala Alyan 36:53
Always excited to read that book.

Traci Thomas 36:56
I’m 20 pages in and I’m like, so excited. I’m a big basketball fan. The book is like his book about basketball, but also, it’s about home. And he’s from Columbus. And he writes so well about everything that I have to imagine he’s gonna write beautifully about the place that he was so much.

Hala Alyan 37:12
Question, if you know nothing about basketball, and are completely unmoved by it. Will you still like this book?

Traci Thomas 37:18
So I have heard from people who have finished it, who do not care about sports or basketball at all, and they love love, love it. Like, they’re like what he’s writing. I mean, I think all his books are sort of like that, like, just burger brilliance. He’s just brought, I mean, yeah, like when you’re at that level, good. Sort of like, Oh, I’m writing about, like, this specific thing that no one’s ever heard of, but if you’re good, you’ll make us you know, hear and care. So those are our recommendations, folks. And Melissa, if you read any of those, let us know what you think. And everyone else email asked the stacks, the stacks. podcast.com. So send us your recommendations. We have questions, we have things to recommend. All right. Now it’s time for you to talk about the books of your life. Two books you love one book you hate.

Hala Alyan 37:58
I love the Vanishing. So I’m just gonna go into last year, okay, because otherwise I’m gonna get overwhelmed. I in the last year, I loved bliss and sorrow. And I loved the vanishing half at a book that I hated.

Traci Thomas 38:11
I don’t, you could go further back than the last year if you want to do book you’ve never liked.

Hala Alyan 38:18
I’ve never been able to get through a single Ernest Hemingway book. I mean, either, which has always made me feel like a bad reader. Because like, I just don’t, I’m like very unmoved by that.

Traci Thomas 38:31
I think that’s fair. I think that’s fair. What kind of reader Are you?

Hala Alyan 38:36
I love reading, I am very voracious sometimes. And that it’s usually like actually a good marker of how well I’m doing in my life is whether I’m reading actively or not. So if I haven’t read in a while, it’s like, things aren’t going great. I’m a very fast reader. I kind of like, yeah, I can kind of speed read. And so actually, when I’m really loving a book, I have to like I really am like, very will find a very mindfully slow down the pace that I’m getting through it so that I don’t finish it too quickly. But I’m not like I’m not a big read several things at the same time. I find that kind of distracting. I will say I very new development in my life is that I started listening to audiobooks, specifically of memoirs. It’s the only thing that I listened to, but I can’t I actually can’t imagine listening to a novel. But the memoir, then now you’re talking because I love podcasts. Now you’re talking like a nine hour podcast, where a person is talking about their life. Yeah, delicious. I mean, it’s like a therapist dream, you know what I mean? And there because there are I mean, I only have ones that are like, narrated by the memoirs of Phelps and so it’s like, kind of like the most amazing experience. Yeah, that was my gateway. Yeah, I just listened to what my bones know. And like she, I mean, she also was like American by like, she also her voice is amazing. And like kind of like knows how to do this thing. But it was So wonderful. Yeah, I was just like, I’m gonna spend, you know, like 10 hours with this person and just hear about their life and hear about their like, be let into their world. So yeah, I can’t quite I’ve tried to audio book like, which like it hasn’t really worked in any other genre but I love the memoir.

Traci Thomas 40:16
Yeah, memoir read by author was my gateway into audiobooks, the more that I listen to audiobooks, the more that I can listen to on audiobook. So it’s almost like a lifestyle show now, not on audio. I don’t love fiction generally. So I’m very, like, I’m very discerning about what fiction I pick up, I almost have to, like, know that I’m gonna like it. Like because it struggle, there are a few fiction books I’ve read on audio that I’ve liked.

Hala Alyan 40:41
So it’s not so fiction in general is what is it about it that doesn’t?

Traci Thomas 40:46
I don’t know. I think sometimes, I think sometimes, like being able to predict what’s going to happen gets in my way of reading a novel in a way that with nonfiction, I either don’t need to because I already know what’s gonna happen, or I have no clue what’s gonna happen. And I don’t I think sometimes I like judge what’s going to happen in fiction. Like, I’m like, Oh, this is not believable in a way that if I know it’s true, I’m like, Well, I have to believe it, because it really happened. And I also think that I don’t love. I like a lot of plot. And so a lot of books that people recommend, to me are books that are much more character driven. And I struggle with those. So I try really hard to, like, do a little bit more research about fiction that I read, because I really don’t like not liking a book, like I really don’t like being like, Oh, this is a slog, because I just have to read so much. So I’ve started actually doing more, a little more genre fiction, because knowing that I know it’s going to have a happy ending, if it’s a matter of romance, knowing that it’s gonna get solved. Kind of takes that like, part out for me, but I don’t know, I just I really liked your stories. I like documentaries.

Hala Alyan 41:52
Like I just like to see. So like, that’s like pretty consistent across media.

Traci Thomas 41:57
Yeah, I think so. I’m like, I like reality TV. I do like some scripted, but still very formulaic. Like my favorite TV shows Grey’s Anatomy. I know what’s gonna happen when I don’t like where I’m like, trying to figure it out, but I’m not sure. Like, I’m just like, tell me what’s gonna happen. It’s really, like, don’t, or Yeah, because like, like, I watched like succession. Do you watch that show? I bought, did you? Yeah. And the whole time I’m watching. I’m just like, okay, so this is the next move. So I think maybe that’s part of why, but on audio fiction is hard.

Hala Alyan 42:30
I was just gonna say I’ve never tried it. I’ve never tried audio fiction.

Traci Thomas 42:33
It’s hard because there’s characters and I want to buy our opinions about that. Yeah, I want to have more opinions about the characters in my brain. Whereas with nonfiction, it’s a little bit a little bit easier, I think. What are you reading right now?

Hala Alyan 42:47
Actually, in this very moment, nothing and that is something I gotta I gotta pick a book. I have this like, you know, like, there’s one of my bookshelves is like just books I haven’t read yet. And so I actually yesterday was kind of like, should I go nonfiction? Should I go? I go nonfiction, like a fiction and then I just went to sleep. But I think like that’s like I’m kind of in that delicious. I sort of love this moment where you’re like, about to start a project you’re about to start reading something I’m listening to. So it’s interesting because you just said what are you reading and I don’t know that I think of audio is reading so I guess if we are including audio that I would say I’m listening to Sloane Crosley.

Traci Thomas 43:31
Grief is for people. Are you liking it?

Hala Alyan 43:34
I am actually. there’s certain parts that I am like, I’m like I’m only about halfway through and there’s certain like she’s she’s weaving in a bunch of different things. It’s like the primary story is about her friends suicide it’s very like and like also how that happened a month after her apart she got burglarized and so it’s like about like loss and grief in these different ways. And she’s sort of starting to weave in other things and I feel like sometimes I’m losing the plot a little bit but she is such a like she’s one of those writers that’s so engaging and so funny and so you know what I mean like evocative but you kind of kind of like off all you where you wherever you go, yeah, yeah, interesting. I also read Leslie J. Or heard I listened to Lesley Jameson splinters right. Oh, that was that.

Traci Thomas 44:22
I haven’t read it yet. But I want to do it on audio.

Hala Alyan 44:24
I will listen to an audio and she also has a voice I don’t know if I can voice their beautiful speaking boys very, like slow and melodic. And yeah, it’s like a very painful story about like a divorce. And like, you know, like, I get also lost in these different ways. Like, but but like, but yeah, I’ve been I’ve enjoyed it.

Traci Thomas 44:44
Do you do celebrity memoirs on audio ever?

Hala Alyan 44:46
I don’t think I’ve ever read a celebrity memoir in my life.

Traci Thomas 44:49
So yes, there’s that. I mean, that’s what like for me, a lot of times audiobooks end up being like something that I’m reading when I’m doing dishes or folding laundry and like kind of just like want a little bit Raik and I like celebrity culture. I’m very intuitive. So like, like Britney Spears. This memoir is so fun on audio. Mariah Carey’s memoir is so much fun on audio. But like sometimes I’ll pick up on that I’m not that interested in like Demi Moore was not excited about it, but someone told me it was good. And it was like, great. I knew nothing about her. And I was like, really into it. Yeah. I just think they’re fun. Viola Davis is is great. I’ve heard Sinead O’Connor’s is fantastic. That’s like the next one I’m going to do. But yeah, I sort of liked them on on audio and they almost always read their own, obviously, because they’re famous for that.

Hala Alyan 45:36
Yeah, I’ve never I’ve really had I was thinking of listening to I’m Glad My Mom Died.

Traci Thomas 45:43
Oh, yeah, that’s great. Trevor Noah is is great on audio. Yeah. Remember, no is one of the that was my first ever real audio book and it is a perfect gateway audiobook.

Hala Alyan 45:53
Okay, okay. So then I need to Okay. All right.

Traci Thomas 45:59
There’s some wrecks. Okay. How do you pick the next thing you’re gonna read? Like, what will you do? Do? Do you have like a list going? Do you take recommendations from your friends or family? Is it just you look at your shelf and feel the vibes?

Hala Alyan 46:11
I think I look at the shelf and feel the vibes. I’m just like, am I looking to be sad? Am I looking to be devastated? I like have those are the two options Saturday. And you know what I mean? Like, I’m looking at, you know, what’s the what is where am I at right now, I have a lot of nonfiction like a lot of like, historical nonfiction that I really, really should get to, especially like, I’m kind of, like, learn more about the world, you know? I don’t know, but always been, it’s always like, you know, I have a tub like, I’m always so tired at the end of the day that I’m just like, just give me something I could sink into. But yes, I do. I like follow a lot of like, like, you know, Instagram accounts that like center, like reading and write. So like, I will, I will often like keep kind of a running list going. And every now and then we’ll just order a bunch and keep it I mean, you know, it’s, I’m not someone that orders like one and then reads it and then orders another and then reads it. You know what I mean? Like, I definitely like have way too many books that I have not like begun to read. And it makes me feel safe.

Traci Thomas 47:06
I can relate. I have so many books that I’ve never read and many that I never will read likely, but I need me at all times. Just in case. Case of it like I don’t read horror. I’m terrified of horror. I can’t do it. But I have like 12 horror books just like in case I get like weird with myself. I don’t know. So, in case I change.

Hala Alyan 47:28
Do you say that because I very recently read. Now I’m not gonna remember what it was. It was like the guest or something of the Oh, the quiet tenant. And it was I just like have like a criminal’s shallow, I think she’s French. And I’ve not read a book. Like it’s not like a serial killer. And I’ve not read a book like this. Maybe in my life. Certainly not since I was like a teenager. And it just I don’t know what it was something was calling for like some like, just gore and it was excellent.

Traci Thomas 47:57
Oh, wow. I love that. Okay, what’s a book that you love to recommend to people?

Hala Alyan 48:03
I love to recommend I mean, I’m a big like for poetry I love I think that’s like a very stereotypical thing for like a Palestinian to say, but I really do. I think like his writing is really beautiful. It’s so tragic to me that I can’t read it like I speak Arabic but I can’t read or write it really like I’m like a like a second grader.

Traci Thomas 48:24
Do you have an ideal reading setup like a time of day a location snacks or beverages temperature music kind of what’s what’s the perfect reading?

Hala Alyan 48:34
No music. I’m actually where I’m sitting right now is like this monstrously big day bed in my living room, but really is not a great decor choice, but it’s just so comfortable. And I sleep in it, because it’s like right next to my daughter’s bedroom. So I sleep in it all the time, just like because I pass out here. And it’s very comfortable. And there’s a ton of pillows and like a lot of blankets nearby. I don’t the snack that I like, since I was a kid. Because I was like super voracious reader when I was a kid. I was always like, I love eating lemons and salts. And when I say lemons, I mean eat them like an apple like I eat the rind ice. I know it’s very weird. Your face was amazing. Like I’ll just like cut up the lemon into like little like wedges. Get some salt going. Just dip it in the salt and then you just eat it with the rind and the right kind of cuts the bitterness.

Traci Thomas 49:27
I was picturing you taking a bite, like an apple.

Hala Alyan 49:30
It’s also happened that’s also happened but like yeah, I love regular lemon.

Traci Thomas 49:36
What? Like a Meyer lemon or just a straight up bitter-

Hala Alyan 49:39
A lemon, lemon, lemon. You know, it’s really funny.

Traci Thomas 49:42
This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I love it.

Hala Alyan 49:45
This is gonna be the second craziest thing you’ve ever heard is my kid, since she was like one, she calls them Yemens. She loves lemon, and when I say she loves lemon, she just likes to like suck on a unsalted, unsugared lemon.

Traci Thomas 50:02
My kids like lemons too. They call them manoos.

Hala Alyan 50:09
So people would be like okay you get that from your mom. Because like it yeah, I’d like that. So that is a snack that I think because I did it so much when I was a kid is like when I’m reading and it’s like kind of have a hand for like that’s the one that I find myself like salivating for it’s super weird I recognize so all my books are like a lot of my books are really sticky and smell like lemons and smell like lemons, which is a great thing to smell like which is a great smell.

Traci Thomas 50:32
It’s so funny. The reason I added this question to the questionnaire was exactly for an answer like yours, like something special and something that I’d never a lot of times did I got corn and wine, not salted lemon incredible. Do you have a favorite bookstore?

Hala Alyan 50:49
I really love Greenlight books. I’ve done like a launch there before I like books are magic. I like word bookstore. Those are three like local ones that are like within the vicinity of where I live in Brooklyn. Yeah, I just I love like a like a small indie bookstore. It’s like nothing feels cozy or to me in the world.

Traci Thomas 51:08
The best. What’s the last book that made you laugh?

Hala Alyan 51:12
Actually, the Sloane Crosley there’s been a couple of like laugh aloud moments and like her writing where like she also because she does have she has this very, like very soothing and also somehow simultaneously sardonic voice. And so there’s a way that she delivers her lines, but like I’ve like there been a couple times where I’m just like with, like, with laughter on like a train.

Traci Thomas 51:32
I love that. What about the last book that made you cry?

Hala Alyan 51:35
Last book that made me cry probably would have been Bliss and Sorrow.

Traci Thomas 51:39
Yeah, the last book that made you angry.

Hala Alyan 51:43
I was rereading The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by like an Israeli historian. And just, you know, like, respecting the last few months, and I was that was making me very, I mean, angry. Yeah, it was making me angry and sad and frustrated and whatever. And I’m just like, I wish people would just like read more about the history. It’s our veterans.

Traci Thomas 52:03
Yeah. What about the last book where you felt like you learned a lot?

Hala Alyan 52:06
Oh, I think actually, that book, probably because I think I had like, read it kind of in a cursory fashion years and years ago, because I was like, oh, I should know this stuff. You know, like, I should read this. And reading it now. And against the backdrop of everything that’s happening was like, like, the stakes are so different. And it like really was like, Oh, my God, this has been like, this has been ongoing for, like, three quarters of a century. It was like really seeing it. And also kind of seeing, there’s a lot of like, I mean, this isn’t so much in the book, but I’ve also been like looking at imagery from the late 40s. And like how much it mimics the imagery that’s coming out now. And it’s just like really hard.

Traci Thomas 52:44
Yeah. History when you start digging in, it’s just not upsetting. It’s not good. very upsetting. It’s very, very upsetting. Yeah, I think that’s why so many people are like, I don’t like history. I’m like, Yeah, cuz you start to feel pretty because it doesn’t feel good. Doesn’t feel good. We people behave badly. Is there a book that you wish more people like read or knew about?

Hala Alyan 53:10
There’s a poetry collection by Eduardo Hudy. That’s called Bint. And it’s like, such a stunning book. And should be like a book that like people read in classrooms and stuff. It’s really beautiful. I would say I found although I think this is relatively people are like meet me tonight in Atlantic City by train want to be really beautiful. And then more. Okay, great. Yeah. So that’s, that’s, that’s what I would say like check out.

Traci Thomas 53:37
Okay. I guess since you have this whole other career and job I should ask you this. Are there any books that influenced your other professional career, your psychology career?

Hala Alyan 53:48
That’s a good question. Okay. So there’s a book called by Philip Zimbardo called The Lucifer Effect. And it’s like, it’s I think the tagline is, like, understanding how good people turned evil. And it talks a lot about like it kind of unpacks the Stanford Prison Experiment and it basically just like, you know, he, I mean, I don’t know how I feel about the word evil, but like, he basically talks about the psychology of people doing things that feel you know, outside the norm of their like value systems and how much it like and and really, how it doesn’t take much for people to kind of like buy into like power dynamics and start like, you know, mistreating others.

Traci Thomas 54:24
This sounds that book sounds extremely my shit. Kind of, like, Yeah, I think you’re gonna immediately go get that. If you were a high school teacher, what’s a book you would assign your students?

Hala Alyan 54:37
I think in this moment, I would love to, like assign more stuff by about Palestine. I think that’s like something that’s really underrepresented. I think I would also I feel like in high school, I didn’t really read a lot of poetry. I think I would like go hard on poetry as well.

Traci Thomas 54:53
Last one, if you could require the current president of the United States to read one book, what would it be?

Hala Alyan 54:59
Probably like the like a book by where she had a D or a book by Ilan Pappe or a book like, I mean, something in this particular moment to like, get right with your history. You know what I mean? Like, if you’re gonna make the choices you’re making make them but like, at least like, have studied your history from all angles.

Traci Thomas 55:17
I got big energy for Joe these days. This has been a conversation with Hala Alyan. Her new book is The Moon That Turns You Back. She will be back with us April 24th. We’re discussing The January Children. I’m so excited. It’s Poetry Month we’re digging in you guys. I cannot wait. So get your copies of that book. Get your copies of Hala’s books. She’s got many. So if you’ve already read the moon that turns you back. You could read. She’s got two novels, two other poetry collections or three other poetry collections.

Hala Alyan 55:50
I think this is the fifth.

Traci Thomas 55:53
Oh, damn. So you guys have reading to do, how about that? Yeah, there’s plenty of time. Hala thank you so much for being here.

Hala Alyan 56:02
Thank you so much for having me. This was wonderful.

Traci Thomas 56:05
And everyone else we will see you in the stacks.

Alright, y’all, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you again to Hala for joining the show. I’d also like to say a quick thank you to Nima Leopold for helping to make this conversation possible. Hala will be back with us on Wednesday, April 24th for the Stacks book club discussion at the poetry collection the January children by Safia Elhillo. If you love the show and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join the stacks pack. If you’re interested in more of my hot takes, go to Tracithomas.substack.com and subscribe to Unstacked make sure you’re subscribed to The Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you’re listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from The Stacks, follow us on social media at the stacks pod on Instagram threads and tick tock and at the stacks pod underscore on Twitter. And you can check out our website stacks podcast.com This episode of the stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin MacWrite. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Cherie Marquez http://takeonedaily.media
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