RAWIFEST 2025

Join us for the 2025 RAWIFest! This year's conference features keynote addresses by Fady Joudah and Noor Naga; workshops from Leila Chatti, Maryan Nagy Captan, Aisha Abdel Gawad, Nadia Khansa, and Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative; a performance by Fargo Nissim Tbakhi; and panels and readings from many, many more!

A ticket gives access to each day of the conference along with a complimentary lunch. We look forward to seeing you!

About RAWIFest:

RAWIFest is a biannual conference that has been held for three decades and running, bringing together Arab and SWANA creatives as well as non-SWANA allies–not only poets, prose writers, and playwrights, but visual artists, performance artists, musicians, educators and scholars–both in diaspora in North America as well as from other regions. At RAWIFest, we aim to create a space where we can talk amongst ourselves and highlight voices and people threatened by erasure. In a global climate where opportunities for Arab and SWANA creatives to share our experiences and insights is limited, RAWI’s biennial gathering provides a rare opportunity to bring a large number of Arab American and SWANA writers, artists, and scholars (and their readers, allies, and admirers) into the same inclusive and welcoming space so we can engage in various dialogues otherwise unavailable to us.

Venue accessibility information:

The conference venue includes an elevator for those with mobility issues and ADA accessible bathrooms. A gender-neutral bathroom is available at the student center and attendees are encouraged to use the bathroom of their choice. Respirator masks are strongly encouraged. The University of Houston has also said they will work with us to support specific access issues and needs through their accessibility center, as needed.

Extended travel safety advisory for international and LGBTQ+ attendees is available through request or upon registration.

Questions? Reach out at cmFkaXVzb2ZhcmFiYW1lcmljYW53cml0ZXJzIHwgZ21haWwgISBjb20=

Info: 10/10 - Check-in to the conference! Claim your badge and get detailed access information about the weekend.

Info: 10/10 - Grab refreshments and socialize with other conference attendees!

Info: 10/10 - Fady Joudah is the author of […]. He has also published six collections of poems: The Earth in the Attic; Alight; Textu, a book-long sequence of short poems whose meter is based on cellphone character count; Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance; and Tethered to Stars. He has translated several collections of poetry from the Arabic and is the co-editor and co-founder of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. He was a winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition in 2007 and has received the Jackson Poetry Prize, a PEN award, a Banipal/Times Literary Supplement prize from the UK, the Griffin Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Arab American Book Award. He lives in Houston, with his wife and kids, where he practices internal medicine.

Info: 10/11 - Noor Naga is an Alexandrian writer who was born in Philadelphia, raised in Dubai, studied in Toronto, and now lives in Cairo. Apart from her debut novel If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English, she is also the author of the verse-novel Washes, Prays. Noor teaches at the American University in Cairo.

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