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.

$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.

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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.

We’re reflecting on the challenges our communities in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan, and Minneapolis/St. Paul continue...
05/26/2026

We’re reflecting on the challenges our communities in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan, and Minneapolis/St. Paul continue to face under fascist policies and ongoing devastation. Through it all, Mizna remains committed to cultural production, critical engagement, and supporting artists leading the way. With screenings, readings, and solidarity fundraisers, we are committed to gathering with our communities, in sorrow, in rage, in celebration, in resistance, in resilience.

At AWP, a national writing conference that was held in Baltimore, we hosted an evening of profound literary readings that raised funds for grassroots efforts in Sudan, featuring Sara Elkamel, Ruba Elmelik, Umniya Najaer, Ladan Osman, and Mohammed Zenia.

Help us stay resilient in these urgent times. We’re raising $8,000 to sustain our 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

Excerpt from "On the Other End of Translation" by Elina Katrin, featured in the Tongues Untethered folio on Mizna Online...
05/25/2026

Excerpt from "On the Other End of Translation" by Elina Katrin, 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

MIZNA: TRANSLATIONAL, ORDER NOW!Mizna 26.2: Translational, explores translation “as genre, theory, praxis, culture, indu...
05/23/2026

MIZNA: TRANSLATIONAL, ORDER NOW!

Mizna 26.2: Translational, explores translation “as genre, theory, praxis, culture, industry, gaze, gaze back; half labor, half art; antiproperty and phantom property,” in the words of writer, scholar, and translator Mona Kareem.

Mizna 26.2, Translational is guest-edited by Mona Kareem and features contributions from Batool Abu Akleen, Kareem James Abu-Zeid, Aron Aji, Stine An, Sinan Antoon, Sargon Boulus, Wendy Chen, Najwan Darwish, Marissa Davis, Dipti Dutta Das, Sara Elkamel, Huda Fakhreddine, Stéphanie Ferrat, Yuemin He, AJ Javaheri, Fady Joudah, Jack Saebyok Jung, Aruni Kashyap, Safa Khatib, Aya Nabih, Anna T. Pigott, Emma Ramadan, Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, Yi Sang, Samah Selim, Wiam El-Tamami, Yilin Wang, and Zhang Zhihao.

Visual art by Mandy El-Sayegh.

Order at mizna.org/shop

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Address

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

Opening Hours

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

Telephone

+16127886920

Website

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