Mizna

Mizna Mizna is a woman-led contemporary arts organization promoting experimental approaches to Arab + SWANA art, lit + film.

We publish Mizna Online and our biannual print journal, "Mizna," and produce the annual Twin Cities Arab Film Fest.

Mizna is proud to co-sponsor two showings of The Last Palestinian, starring acclaimed author Randa Jarrar, in Los Angele...
06/08/2026

Mizna is proud to co-sponsor two showings of The Last Palestinian, starring acclaimed author Randa Jarrar, in Los Angeles. Join us for these one-person performances on Sunday, June 21, 2026 at 2pm and Tuesday June 23 at 7:30pm at the Broadwater Second Stage.

WHEN: Sunday, June 21, 2026 at 2pm and Tuesday June 23 at 7:30pm
WHERE: Broadwater Second Stage, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90038
TICKETS at mizna.org
Use code MIZNA for $5 tickets



Meet Umniya Najaer, guest editor of Mizna: Ancestry/IndigeneitySubmissions are open for our forthcoming literary journal...
06/05/2026

Meet Umniya Najaer, guest editor of Mizna: Ancestry/Indigeneity

Submissions are open for our forthcoming literary journal, seeking poetry, prose, and hybrid literary work that focuses on ancestry and indigeneity.

Guest-edited by poet and scholar Umniya Najaer, this issue is interested in honoring Indigenous wisdoms in their many forms and giving space for writers and artists to explore their relationships to ancestry, inheritance, memory, spirit, land, flora, fauna, and the cultural practices that have grown from them.

Read the full call for submissions at mizna.org
Submit your work by July 6, 2026 at 11:59pm CT.

ABOUT UMNIYA
Umniya Najaer, Ph.D., is an interdisciplinary poet, essayist and Black Studies scholar of Sudanese origin. She is serving as the Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder for the 2025-26 academic year. Umniya’s writing is invested in activating the human ability to feel what each other feels. Her work is guided by a profound reverence for our planetary home, a duty to protect all lifeforms, and a commitment to oppose all systems of dehumanization, brutality, and deathmaking.

Mizna celebrates the launch of the recent tribute publication to Etel Adnan, a transnational and multilingual collection...
06/04/2026

Mizna celebrates the launch of the recent tribute publication to Etel Adnan, a transnational and multilingual collection of prose and poetry celebrating Adnan's legacy alongside a selection of Adnan’s final, previously unpublished watercolour paintings.

To capture the relational and caring spirit of this volume, and celebrate its co-publication with Mack and Bidoun, Mizna presents the following excerpt, featuring a new poem by long-beloved Afghani poet and acclaimed novelist Aria Aber.

Read more at mizna.org
aber

$2500 until we reach our spring appeal goal! Will you help us close the gap?Help us stay resilient in these urgent times...
06/03/2026

$2500 until we reach our spring appeal goal! Will you help us close the gap?

Help us stay resilient in these urgent times. We’re raising $8,000 to sustain this work. Become a monthly supporter at $5, $25, $100, or any amount meaningful to you and help build our collective power to withstand what comes next.

For this spring appeal, we're excited to offer our supporters special benefits! Scroll through to check out all of the ways you can feel the love.

GIVE NOW: givemn.org/mizna

JOCELYNE SAAB RETROSPECTIVE SCREENINGS + FUNDRAISER FOR LEBANONMizna presents a retrospective screening series celebrati...
06/02/2026

JOCELYNE SAAB RETROSPECTIVE SCREENINGS + FUNDRAISER FOR LEBANON

Mizna presents a retrospective screening series celebrating the recently restored works of Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab. Join us at the Main Cinema on July 8, 2026 for a screening of The Razors Edge and July 15, 2026 for a screening of Saab’s Beirut Trilogy.

WHERE: The Main Cinema, 115 SE Main Street
Minneapolis, MN 55414
WHEN: July 8 and July 15, 2026 at 7pm

Tickets are pay-what-you-can, $5 minimum. Available now at mizna.org

Direct donations will be encouraged at each screening to ​​benefit the Ghassan Abu Sitta Children’s fund, dedicated to providing medical attention to children who need it the most and helping to relieve the medical sector in Palestine and Lebanon.

DONATE NOW at mizna.org

THIS WEDNESDAYMizna celebrates the publication of Until I Return—The Selected Plays of Ismail Khalidi with an event in M...
06/01/2026

THIS WEDNESDAY

Mizna celebrates the publication of Until I Return—The Selected Plays of Ismail Khalidi with an event in Minneapolis on June 3 at 7pm (doors 6:30pm) at the Minnesota Museum of American Art. Khalidi will read an excerpt from his play “Foot,” which was originally published in Mizna 6.2 (2004) and is currently touring in Spain.

Notable scholar and activist Sima Shakhsari will then be in conversation with Khalidi about his work and the current political moment.

WHEN: A-Mill Artist Lofts, 315 SE Main St, Minneapolis, MN 55414
WHERE: June 3, 2026 at 7pm
RSVP REQUIRED: RSVP at mizna.org

Join us for this free, stimulating evening; copies of Until I Return will be available for purchase and signing. All proceeds will go to supporting Middle East Children’s Alliance Gaza relief work.

Thank you to A-Mill Artist Lofts for hosting this event! This event is made possible by our community sponsor New Arab American Theater Works.

.khalidi

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONSMIZNA 27.2: ANCESTRY/INDIGENEITYGUEST EDITED BY UMNIYA NAJAERDUE JULY 6Mizna is opening submissions ...
05/29/2026

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
MIZNA 27.2: ANCESTRY/INDIGENEITY
GUEST EDITED BY UMNIYA NAJAER
DUE JULY 6

Mizna is opening submissions for its newest issue, seeking poetry, prose, and hybrid literary work that focuses on ancestry and indigeneity.

Guest-edited by poet and scholar Umniya Najaer, this issue is interested in honoring Indigenous wisdoms in their many forms and giving space for writers and artists to explore their relationships to ancestry, inheritance, memory, spirit, land, flora, fauna, and the cultural practices that have grown from them.

We invite work that views ancestry and indigeneity not as static legacies, but as living practices of remembering, grieving, resisting, creating, and imagining otherwise. We are especially interested in work that attends to the intimate and collective forms through which ancestral knowledge ruptures, transforms, and survives—in kitchens, songs, ceremonies, gardens, garments, prayers, archives, dreams, rivers, ruins, and revolutionary movements. We welcome work that utilizes experimental methods to tell new stories about our ancestors, our obligations to the living, and our relationships to land, indigeneity, sovereignty, memory, and belonging.

Read the full call for submissions at mizna.org
Submit your work by July 6, 2026 at 11:59pm CT.

Now on Mizna Online: Poems from Emily Ahmed's collection of poetry "On Distance." Each poem in Ahmed's book can be read...
05/28/2026

Now on Mizna Online: Poems from Emily Ahmed's collection of poetry "On Distance." Each poem in Ahmed's book can be read as a line that either moves toward or away from a pulsing, blurry core: the concept of home.

Read now at mizna.org

Excerpt from "Postmortem" by Sarah Cypher, featured in the Tongues Untethered folio on Mizna Online.A year ago, janan al...
05/28/2026

Excerpt from "Postmortem" by Sarah Cypher, featured in the Tongues Untethered folio on Mizna Online.

A year ago, janan alexandra, Key K. Bird, Sarah Cypher, and folio curator Elina Katrin gathered as part of a MassPoetry virtual program to deepen and address the less-talked-about experience of being cross-cultural, multi-linguistic, and being cross-genre writers. The conversation led to a mutual desire to keep the conversation going, which inevitably led to this digital folio. Writings in this folio investigate if the in/ability to speak one’s mother tongue is a failure, an opportunity, or both—simply the reality for diaspora writers.

Read all the pieces in the folio now at mizna.org

This Eid al Adha, our hearts are with Lebanon and Palestine as Israel escalates its attacks and forced displacement orde...
05/27/2026

This Eid al Adha, our hearts are with Lebanon and Palestine as Israel escalates its attacks and forced displacement orders in both Southern Lebanon and Gaza. A day where families are meant to celebrate and eat together, is once again mired in catastrophe.

We extend our solidarity, grief, and love to our kin in Lebanon and Palestine today.

This image is adapted from a poster made by Marc Rudin in 1984 entitled Build the Revolution’s Future.

Address

2446 University Avenue W, Suite 115
Saint Paul, MN
55114

Opening Hours

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Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9:30am - 5pm
Thursday 9:30am - 5pm

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