Director: S. E. Jihad Levine (Sister Safiyyah) Assistant Director: Mahasin D. Shamsid-Deen Secretary: Balqees Mohammed Financial Officer: Linda D. Delgado (Sister Widad) Marketing Officer: Zabrina bint Abu Bakar
Each of these elected positions of the Board of Directors is on a volunteer basis.
Work for Hire Positions –
Sister Umm Junayd bint Naeem is the Editor in Chief of Islamic Ink, IWA’s quarterly magazine, as well as Web-Admin for the IWA’s official website: www.islamicwritersalliance.net.
The two anthologies: Many Poetic Voices, One Faith and Many Voices, One Faith II - Islamic Fiction Stories which are to showcase the talent of the IWA membership, are in a progressive state of development. Updates will be reported as they occur, with the proposed deadline of publication and release before the completion of 2009, inshaAllah. As of the end of July, the fiction anthology Many Voices, One Faith II - Islamic Fiction Stories has been duly prepared and formatted and sent for the final editing, and is scheduled for publication and release by the end of August or beginning of September.
IWA Poetry & Fiction Contests:
The winners of each category for each of the contests have been posted on the IWA’s official website. Log onto www.islamicwritersalliance.net for updates on the results.
IWA Catalog:
The IWA Catalog is a comprehensive listing of all participating IWA members who have paid for this advertisement to be included in this catalog. It is an excellent additional marketing tool at a reasonably low price for all and any members interested in being included in future updates of the catalog. It is also an excellent and helpful marketing tool to have on hand when visiting bookstores, schools, educational professionals, or anyone else who you are interested in raising interest with for the presence and purpose of the IWA.
For those interested in downloading the printable version, please contact the IWA Marketing Officer, Sr. Zabrina or the IWA Director, Sr. Safiyyah.
501C3 Non-Profit Status & Administrative Measures
We are getting closer to a long-time goal of attaining official non-profit status, which will in turn provide more benefits for the organization as a whole, with cascading rippling effects to each and every one of our members as well as the public to whom we cater our services. The months of June and July are a critical time when the paper work for Board Members’ signatures will be mailed around the world to our various Board Members, and the next steps will be the finalization in the filing process for this status. Sis Safiyyah, as IWA Director, will be at the helm of the whole process, sending the forms to each Board member and receiving back from them, then continuing on in the filing process once all the signatures are collected.
ISNA Convention
Our representatives who attended the annual ISNA Convention, which was held in Washington D.C. over the 4th of July weekend, report successes in high attendance and interest in our organization. It is apparent that many new recruits were gained from this venue, and much excellent networking was achieved.
IWA Website
The IWA website has much to offer all in the form of information about the IWA present and past, as well as the various products and services available through this international group of professionals dedicated to producing and dispersing quality Islamic Literature.
IWA members and associates-do not miss out on this grand opportunity for yourselves in the form of some free and some very nominally priced advertising opportunities. For the members, there is free of charge the chance to publicize your talents via the Members’ Page venue. Attention Associates: this is a great incentive on it’s own to become a due-paying member. There is also the Bookstore, which is a listing of those published authors desiring this additional spotlight to showcase their work. In addition, there are pages to update you on the history and evolution of the IWA, as well as regular monthly updates concerning important news as well as updates to the members’ pages.
Br. Irving Karchmar: Irving Karchmar, author of the Sufi novel, Master of the Jinn, has announced that the next translation of his book will be in Malaysian, inshallah. The recently completed negotiations makes this the seventh language in which the book will be available, in addition to the original English, and the various translations in Russian, Turkish, Indonesian, German, and Croatian (which was just released this past month).
Sr. Zabrina Abu Bakr: Sis Zabrina's latest book Life is an Open Secret- Ramadan Special has hit the Weekly National Bestseller List of Malaysia only two weeks after its launching. Tri-State Newspaper of NY, USA, carried a book review of this latest edition of her currently 3-book inspirational series.
Wise Words Publishing is going to launch its first newsletter end of august. Right now, WWP is finalizing all details. With more than 2000 subscribers currently in the database, Wise Words Publishing is still looking for more ways to increase its subscribers' database and new strategies are being investigated. Always keen for ways to develop and spread further, Wise Words Publishing is seriously considering setting up a branch in the USA to assist in the distribution and promotion of all its books. More news on this will be posted as developments are confirmed.
Sis Zabrina is researching for her fourth Life Is An Open Secret book that carries a theme surrounding fundamentals that a person should have in order to attract success and wealth in their lives; while in the meantime, she is coaching another new upcoming author who writes Islamic Nursery Rhymes.
Some of her Islamic Motivational Stories can be viewed in various newspaper and magazines for free. She is actively looking for any newsletters, newspapers and magazines (both online and print) that are interested to publish her Islamic Motivational Stories. A posting of some of these periodicals will be posted in a later edition of this newsletter.
Sis Zabrina has just revamped her Islamic Motivational Blog posts schedule. The new schedule will start this Friday, 7th August 2009. Posts will include 'My Tweets For The Week', 'Friday's Reflection' and 'Story of the Month', among others.
Always busy and working to turn out more books, Sis Zohra reports of her newest projects:
1. Finishing up a Group book, which will be released inshAllaah end of August called 5 Strategies That Will Make Anyone A Successful Leader with the subtitle: Be The Leader Everyone Wants To Follow.
2. Working on the release ofTraitor?,which is a true story about brother Mustafa (A.K.A--T.J. Holdbrooks), the brother who was in Guantanomo Bay as an America Soldier, and found Islam. It is reportedly a powerful story and well written.
Keen on her role as a mentor-mom, Sis Zohra reports that she has been working with her 6-yr old son on writing his first draft of an upcoming book. Details will be coming soon as developments progress. She has also been working on a new book with her author daughter, Alya, reporting that this book is half done. More details on this as well as developments progress.
Sis Zohra reports of having done 2 Radio Interviews for the book NO! I AM NOT A TERRORIST. She also attended the Journey of Faith Conference, which took place in the month of July. Many reputed contemporary scholars were in attendance, and she apparently gained much from their presentations and lectures.
As a home-schooler, Sis Zohra kept busy in the summer keeping her 4 children and a nephew busy with home-summer-school. She is happy to report that all of the children enjoyed their summer school, because they were busy and never had a dull moment. MashaAllah! Great job, sis Zohra, we all pray that Allah will continue to grant you the strength for your busy schedule.
Sis Zohra reports the completion of 12 more You Tube Videos, which will be available for viewing once the editing process is completed, estimating their airing by mid-August. She has already produced and aired 32 videos. Log onto http://www.youtube.com/user/9StepsCoachingfor viewing. She also reports of helping her daughter with 3 videos for You Tube, which can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/user/AlyaNuri.
Sis Zohra has also coached 3 clients, as well as taking a summer class herself: Fiqh-us-Sunnah. She will be finished with this class soon, as finals are almost upon her.
Sr. Tazmin Mahomed: Sis Tazmin, a new member to the IWA, is pleased to announce that her book, Secrets of a Muslim Heart, which was launched in June at the Cape Town Book Fair, is now available on Amazon.com. As a newly published writer, she is thankful for the amazing journey that her own heart searching through the writing and publishing of this book has embarked her upon.
As a dedication to her sisters worldwide, Sis Tazmin has beautifully and artfully put together some of her own heartfelt insights and discoveries in an enlightening collection of poetry and prose in one edition.
For more glimpses of this wonderful journey for all, or to contact Sis Tazmin, you can log onto any of the following:
Linda D. Delgado (Sr. Widad): As a regular contributor for The Crescent Times of Australia, Linda D. Delgado's monthly FOCUS column was published in the July edition. The FOCUS article is titled: “Muslim Publishers and Retailers Missed the Boat: Millions $ Lost!”. www.crescenttimes.com.au
The owner of the American Muslim Mom, Sister Ponn Sabra, conducted an interview with Linda D. Delgado about her work as an award winning published author and poet and her publishing business Muslim Writers Publishing (MWP). The interview was published this last month and can be read at: http://americanmuslimmom.com/ interview-linda-delgado-muslim-writers-publishing. American Muslim Mom has a Summer Islamic Reading Program in progress for Muslims of all ages with great books and prizes being awarded to readers each week.
As publisher for MWP, Linda D. Delgado completed the formatting, content organization, and editorial review of the IWA anthology manuscript, Many Poetic Voices, One Faith. The manuscript, along with 6 original designs created by Sister Shirley Anjum and the front book cover design created by Sister Nazaahah Amin were sent for copy edit completion and book cover and interior layout design work. This new IWA anthology is scheduled for publication and release by the end of August or first week of September 2009.
As the Financial Officer for the IWA, Linda D. Delgado prepared the 2009 IWA Poetry Contest and 2009 IWA Islamic Fiction Story Contest award certificates and with the cash awards mailed them to each contest winner. Congratulations to this year’s first place winners:
Fifth Annual IWA Poetry Contest Winners:
Adult Category Winner: Ertan Karpazli for “Earthquake” Youth Category Winner: Saara Khalid for “The Pen and Sword” IWA Member Category Winner: Marwa Elnaggar for “The Key”
First Annual Islamic Fiction Story Contest Winners:
Adult Category First Place Winners:
Soumy Ana for “My Neighbor's Many Guests”
Amani Jabbar for “The New Moon” Youth Category First Place Winners:
Nur Kose for “Huda Learns a Lesson”
Hanna Bernhard for “Apologize” IWA Member Category First Place Winner:
Judy Nelson-Eldawy for “You Jist Never Know”
Sr. Deborah McNichol: Sis Deborah has been busy this July helping her husband in the family restaurant in Clarksville, VA. This year, alhamdulillah, Kerr Lake boaters and fishermen are outnumbered only by mosquitoes and brown recluse spiders, who really are quite extroverted this year. Between customers, LailaCare, trips to Maryland, and a trip to DC for the ISNA convention, Debora penned a few blog entries, had an article published in The Crescent Times, and wrote another for the upcoming August publication. Sis Debora is working on her law business website and hopes to be finished with it by the next presidential election.
To learn more about Sis Deborah and her work, visit the following sites:
Sr. Sufiya Ahmad: Sr. Sufiya reports of two important events occurring in the UK:
1. Character competition – July 2009
Young person’s author Sufiya Ahmed has teamed up with the Creative Muslim Network in the UK to launch a fictional character competition. The winning entry will feature in the fourth book of the Zahra series ‘Zahra’s Second Year at the Khadija Academy’ which is scheduled for release in 2010.
The competition is open to all girls and boys aged 6 to 16. The profile of the fictional character can be presented in either: a form of an illustration, accompanied by a written profile or a poem describing the new character & the friendship between her and Zahra or a short narrative, eg., how Zahra meets her new friend.
All entries should include a short paragraph explaining why the character should be included in the Zahra series and the deadline is 18th September. All Luton libraries are participating.
Acclaimed author Sufiya Ahmed inspired youngsters when she held a workshop for girls at the Bolton Council of Mosques.
Ms. Ahmed has written the popular books Zahra’s First Term at the Khadija Academy and Zahra’s Great Debate, tales about a pupil at a Muslim boarding school.
She gave a reading before hosting a series of workshops for the budding authors at the Bolton Council of Mosques in Vicarage Street.
Komal Adris, one of the organisers of the event said: “We were delighted Sufiya came to visit us and work with some of the girls. We like to promote role models for the youngsters and she is a fantastic female role model. The girls left inspired after spending some time with her. They are all looking forward to reading her third book when it is published. They’ve decided that they will be inviting her back when they’ve read it.”
IWA MEMBERSHIP UPDATE:
Last tally as of June 30, 2009: 93 members total.
New Members: 4, plus 2 transferred from Associate to Member.
Total Members: 59
Associates: 38
Total: 97
