Samina Ali is the author of the internationally acclaimed novel Madras on Rainy Days, winner of France’s prestigious Prix Premier Roman Étranger Award and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her widely acclaimed memoir Pieces You’ll Never Get Back chronicles how her encounter with death from a nearly fatal pregnancy illness fundamentally changed how she lives. Posing timely questions about faith, hopelessness, and identity, her memoir moves beyond her broken brain to become a mirror for our current fractured society—ultimately providing a roadmap for how we can piece ourselves, and our communities, back together. Pieces You’ll Never Get Back won the APALA Award for Best Nonfiction 2025, was featured on the cover of The Washington Post Sunday Book World and San Francisco Datebook, was named a Best Book of the Month by several outlets including the Los Angeles Times. It was a Belletrist STACKED & BRIEF April Pick, the celebrity book club led by actress Emma Roberts. Screen rights have been optioned.
Ali curated the groundbreaking global exhibition Muslima: Muslim Women’s Art & Voices, and her widely viewed TEDx talk on what the Qur’an really says about hijab has received more than 8 million views worldwide. A former U.S. State Department cultural ambassador, she has spoken at the Nobel Women’s Initiative, Harvard, Yale, the University of Rochester, and for organizations including Okta. Her work and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, NPR, The Huffington Post, and The Economist. She lives in California and speaks globally on gender, faith, immigration, and survival.
Fatemeh Mehraban will read excerpts from Pieces You’ll Never Get Back, by Samina Ali. Fatima is a queer Iranian performing artist, receiving her associate’s of arts in theatre from American River College. Her work combines her passion for performance with her passion for advocacy. These days Fatemeh spends her most of her time between NorCal and sunny Los Angeles working on theatre, film, and voiceover! Her most recent work includes Pilgrimage (Golden Thread), A Distinct Society (Weston Theatre Company), and English (Capital Stage).
A. Muia is the winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction for her novel A Desert Between Two Seas, published with the University of Georgia Press. Her stories and articles have appeared in The Baltimore Review, Chicago Review, Grist, Image Journal, the Orison Anthology, Water~Stone Review, West Branch, AWP’s The Writer’s Chronicle, and other journals. She is a frequent speaker and workshop facilitator, and serves as a teaching writer with Underground Writing, leading workshops with youth in juvenile detention. For thirteen years she served as a chaplain to inmates at the Skagit County Jail. She is the co-founder of New Earth Recovery, a nonprofit serving people in recovery from substance use disorder. Her novel was also a finalist for the Iowa Short Fiction Award and a Top Pick for the 2026 Southwest Books of the Year. Though she loves the desert, she lives in rainy Washington State. Find out more at www.amuia.net.
Gerardo Martin will read the chapter “Vermillion Saint,” from A Desert Between Two Seas, by A. Muia. Gerardo is a proud company member of Big Idea Theatre in Sacramento. He has previously been seen with the Sacramento Shakespeare Festival as Conrad in Much Ado About Nothing, with Big Idea Theatre as Tremayne in Belinda, and with City Theatre as Fred in A Christmas Carol. He is absolutely jubilant for his debut reading with Stories on Stage Davis.