Mona’s writing appeared in:
Featured writing
Just Gone - Jo DeLuzio: A Book Review
Just Gone is easily among my favorite non-fiction reads for the year, though that’s a sad thing to say when the book talks about violent trauma and torture. In her masterpiece, DeLuzio speaks with nine brave individuals who survived persecution for their sexual orientation in their home country, seeking refuge in Canada.
Waiting For Love
I hide at the top of the stairwell, aching for my grandmother’s hug. Behind me, the red door to our private quarters. Below, our guests; in conversations over rolls with our homemade jam, using our tableware.
Windshield Wipers
This piece was shortlisted for the 2024 WestWord Flash Prize.
I'm so sorry that I left the windshield wiper halfway up. I'm sorry it stuck up like your sore thumb with no way to come down from its high, the kind of high you were on as I behaved like myself again, that way that nobody but you would put up with in all those million years I've stayed.
Love the World or Get Killed Trying - Alvina Chamberland: a review
The honor of reviewing Alvina Chamberland’s autofiction was all mine this summer. Hers is a book that makes you question the world. It makes you think, really think, it makes you step out of your comfort zone and into some of the realities that shape her life and that of so many other trans women who aren't seen for who they are but for their bodies instead.
White World - Saad T. Farooqi: a Review
White World by Saad T Farooqi is a book of violence. It is also a book of love, of family, of perseverance. Of a country divided, a country aflame in religious conflict, its reach ever increasing from Pakistan’s historical independence in 1947 to the dystopian future in 2083 that the book is set in.
Forgive Me While I Run
What will it be this time
the thing
that I did wrong
the thing
I didn't do
the flaw
that I am