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Open Mic Readings: Alpha Beta Blah – The Past Tense (Hybrid)
The 2025 AAWW Margins fellows present “Alpha Beta Blah”, a new reading series that invites writers to come frat out with the fellows.
The sophomore reading of this series will take place on September 30th at 7 pm ET. Readers must submit a sample in advance that speaks to the theme “the past tense” – send us a scene from days of summer past, a wistful end to a romance, a childhood memory that crops up at the wrong moment…
Submit your sample to events@aaww.org by September 20th to be considered for the lineup.
This reading series is a part of the AAWW Margins fellowship program.
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M Lin is a Chinese writer living in the US. Born and raised in Beijing, she writes in English as her second language; her mother tongue is Mandarin, which she favors in speech. Her short story collection, The Memory Museum, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in April 2026.
N.S. Ahmed is an Egyptian-American writer based in New York City. His writings have been featured or are forthcoming in publications such as BOMB, Adroit Journal, Joyland, Waxwing, Passages North, The Margins (AAWW), The Offing, and the New York Public Library. Currently, he is a CUNY Pipeline Fellow, a CLS Scholar, a TEDx speaker, a Periplus Collective Fellow, a Shenandoah Editorial Fellow, and a recent graduate and Hertog Research Fellow at Hunter College’s MFA program for creative fiction. He is presently working on a novel and short story collection.
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COMMUNITY CARE & ACCESSIBILITY
At AAWW, the safety and comfort of our community is our top priority. We invite you to practice intentionality and care in your behavior and language when engaging with our programs and with each other. Violence of any kind, including but not limited to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ageism, class or casteism, bigotry or bias toward religion or faith, or any action or assault against marginalized identities, is not tolerated. Those who bring harm to our community in person or online are not welcome, and will be asked to exit the space.
The event will be live streamed on Zoom with auto captioning for those who cannot join us in person. For those joining us in person, we are located on the 18 West 21st Street, Suite 900, there is an elevator that will take you directly to our office. We have two commercial grade air purifiers. We highly encourage all in person guests to take a COVID test at home prior to the event. If you have had COVID or have had known contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID in the 10 days prior, we ask you tune in for the live stream instead. Please reach out to msaleh@aaww.org for additional accessibility requests, including ADA accessible bathrooms, chairs with added back support, and beyond. This space is for YOU!
