Anthology: Islam on My Side

Here is an announcement I found on the Islam on My Side blog:

Islam on My Side will be a published anthology featuring individual voices of Muslims living their lives in post-9/11 America. The collection will be works of creative nonfiction that address the following themes: How has life changed for you post-9/11? More specifically, how did the events of 9/11 impact the way you present yourself as a Muslim? Has your view of other Muslims changed? Do you believe the way your friends, family or peers view you has changed? Has your view of yourself as a Muslim been altered?

I am looking for honest essays that illuminate the many and varied experiences of the members of our ummah. I hope to present a broad spectrum of voices; voices from Muslims of both genders, all ages, ethnicities and backgrounds. There are many kinds of Muslims out there, and I want to hear from all of you.

At this time I cannot promise compensation for your submissions. However, I am pursuing funding for this collection with the goal of compensating every writer featured in the collection.
Send your prose and queries to submissions@islamonmyside.com. DO copy the text of this blog and send it widely to your friends or anyone who might be interested along with the address of this blog. I will be posting updates and excerpts as this anthology takes shape.

I have high hopes for this collection. Insha’Allah you share them. I have seen and heard stories of many Muslims living life in America post-9/11. Most often, they are brief newsclips offered by the media. Human coverage of us has been both good and bad, but often out of our control. This is a chance for us to take that control back and present ourselves to the world with our own voices; to give the world a chance to absorb what we have to say. Writing our stories down allows us to reflect heavily on every word so that we can be certain we’ve said what we mean. Please take this opportunity to tell your own story the way you believe it should be told.

I will work with writers on editing accepted submissions, but will not consider submissions rife with spelling and grammar errors, or that do not have a clear and cohesive structure to the story being told. Also, your prose must have a working title. For more submission guidelines, and for information on contributing to the Islam on My Side blog, click on the “Submissions” link under “Pages” in the sidebar.

Please do not send fiction and poetry submissions at this time, although I do plan to solicit those in the future for a companion collection. For now, I will be reading only non-fiction.

The submission deadline for Islam on My Side will be August 1, 2008.

Read more details about the submissions process here.