Interview with Hala Alyan

Hala Alyan (she/her) is the author of The Arsonist’s City and Salt Houses, as well as four award-winning poetry collections. Recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and Arab American Book Award, Alyan’s work has been published in the New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets, Lit Hub, The New York Times Book Review, and Guernica. Alyan lives with her beloved husband and dog in Brooklyn, New York where she works as a clinical psychologist, professor, and writer. She answered West 10th’s questions in astonishing detail while on the train.

WEST 10TH: As a Palestinian-American person who has lived in Kuwait and Lebanon, you have experienced the culture, lifestyle, environment, emotions, and more of the characters you write about. You expertly describe the lives of these characters from childhood to adulthood. Now, describe yours—when did you know you wanted to become a writer? How did you start? How did you grow into writing the stories you focus on today?

HALA ALYAN: From the time that I was taught how to read, I would write. I became enamored and obsessed with stories and [connected] my learning how to read with the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, then my parents’ immigration to the U.S. It was a really tumultuous, chaotic time. I turned to books and storytelling to make sense of the world. It’s a pretty common experience: if you feel othered, different, or like you’re not fitting in, you’ll lose yourself in the world of books. On top of that, when I learned how to write, I was like, “Oh, my God. I can create my own stories.” I wrote lots of stories about little girls who could stop wars. You know, really cute stuff that now makes a lot of

sense psychologically. I think I was always writing stories about families and, without even thinking about it, immigration. It’s something I realize now: I was always writing stories that would span different countries, [about] travel, leaving places and coming back to them.

WEST 10TH: Because you understand your characters on such a deep level, describe your process of understanding them as if they were real people. Do you see a bit of yourself in them? Your family, or friends?

HALA ALYAN: I do see myself in stories. I love the idea that every person in your dreams is you, and I think every character in your books is you to a certain extent. I definitely think that there are parts of myself in all the characters, and because I tell these long, family sagas, there’s elements of [my] family members. Certainly, [there’s] elements of migration. So, even if I’m not basing a character exactly on someone in my family, I’m basing the story of leaving and coming on [their] story.

WEST 10TH: During Writers in New York 2021, I was your student for a rigorous month of writing and reading. I spoke with you about Salt Houses, which I had been reading during the program. I wondered about your process of writing a generational novel with so many complex characters. You told me that Salt Houses began as a series of short stories. How did the story of the Yacoub family evolve into what it is today?

HALA ALYAN: The first chapter [of the novel] began as the story of a young man in pre-1967 Palestine making sense of what had been lost after ‘48, growing up in a city that was not his family’s, and the dissatisfaction of the youth in that generation. That ended up building up toward the Six Day War. As I was writing this story, I wrote about this character’s sister and the house they had made their home. It just snowballed, and I found myself wanting to tell more and more. I was interested in the mother and sister, who at the time were just after-

thoughts of the story. Then, I found myself writing backwards and writing forwards. I wrote very chaotically—very different from [The Arsonist’s City]. It was not chronological; it was not linear. I wrote the scenes I was excited about at any given time, which was wonderful. But as you can imagine, the editing process was really intense. I don’t necessarily recommend it—I think it’s a good way to write a first novel, but then you learn a lot and write differently moving forward.

WEST 10TH: You have explored several career paths in your life. You are a clinical psychologist, professor, writer and poet. What came first, if any? What was your original passion—the career you knew you had to pursue?

HALA ALYAN: I think I was a writer first, and that included poetry and stories. Then, graduate school was psychology, and being a professor was really incidental. It was totally random. I became a professor because I was offered to teach a class in psychology the year I was finishing my post-doctorate, and I immediately fell in love with it. But even as I was finishing my doctorate degree, I didn’t think I would end up in that field. It’s funny how that happened. Now, it’s such a central part of my life.

WEST 10TH: How do you understand writing through the lens of these careers? Your expertise in psychology is clearly present in the trauma that plagues your writing. However, is psychology what you draw on directly to build these characters?

HALA ALYAN: Yeah, I think my background in psychology helps with understanding characters. I definitely think that is what has enabled me to ask questions about characters’ motivations, fears, and desires. That has a lot to do with the questions you learn, as a therapist, to ask your clients. Understanding people helps you understand characters. It helps you imagine what it would be like to live different lives. It makes you ask better questions of your plot. Same thing with

teaching: I’m around writing—really incredible writing, my students’ writing, which is mind-blowingly good—so I’m inspired by people and narrative and story constantly. As a therapist, as a professor, and as a writer.

WEST 10TH: Does writing and your experience as a poet influence your work as a psychologist and professor? If so, how?

HALA ALYAN: I love that question. I think they kind of compliment each other. Writing teaches you to pay attention to detail. It teaches you to be patient—it takes a long time for a story to present itself to you, or take shape, or tell you what it wants to be. That kind of patience is really helpful when you’re a therapist because people take a long time to tell you their stories and to even understand what their own stories are.

WEST 10TH: You hold Kan Ya Makan (KYM), monthly open mic nights for New York creatives. KYM events are fundraisers for various causes of your choosing, and the attendees can donate what they wish. How did these events begin and become what they are now?

HALA ALYAN: Yes! We finally settled on a name for it. It’s Arabic for “once upon a time.” It started basically just on a fluke. During the pandemic, there were no readings, and it was the summer after COVID-19 started. I had this idea that, because I had an outdoor space, that I could have people come and read, and it would be safe. I did that a couple times, then my good friend and amazing poet, Sara Akant, and I started to do them more regularly and center them around these amazing causes. So, we raise funds and [donate] one hundred percent of the money. We unfortunately had to take a break during the winter [due to the COVID-19 surge], but I’m really looking forward to the spring and opening it up again.

WEST 10TH: In the recent globalized surge of education about Israel’s oppression of Palestinians, your work not only serves as historical fiction but necessary tools for young people’s education right now. Aside from The Arsonist’s City and Salt Houses as well as your past poetry, how have you used writing as a tool for Palestinian liberation— if you would describe your writing as that at all?

HALA ALYAN: It’s hard to describe your own work as that. I just try to write the stories that matter to me, and they happen to be undertold stories. They happen to be stories about overshadowed or marginalized voices. But they are also the stories of myself and my family and people that look like me and sound like me—people that grew up with similar lives because of luck and economic status or the choices that a generation-or-two ago made, like the choices that my grandfather made being different from the choices his siblings made. I’m very aware of the privilege, of the luck that’s been bestowed upon me to even answer these questions about these things and write these stories. I just try to do justice by [them], and if that ends up also helping people access these narratives that they otherwise wouldn’t or shift perspectives or whatever, then that’s amazing.

WEST 10TH: Does writing about the conflict help you work through probably complex emotions, or the opposite?

HALA ALYAN: Writing about occupation and oppression helps clarify your understanding of it. It doesn’t neutralize feelings, but if anything, I think it can strengthen them. It can be mobilizing. It can remind you why it matters. Art can be activism, but there are other forms of activism one can do simultaneously.

Eka Savajol

wetlands

every night i dream simply that we lay down together

your hair becomes tall grasses your body stretches out becomes

the shallow water below in turn my tongue moves as a bird diving to catch a frog

i wake up half-drowning from the puddle formed while dreaming in the humidity i sweat rain

unable to fall back asleep, i hope at least you taste me now as your perspiration comes rolling in the shape of a dark cloud perched on your upper lip

i hope at least our restlessnesses meet, sweat running down the incline into sweat slow-moving deltas converging into the marsh

but i know you are far watching the hills undulate

behind the churning stomach of traffic the summer so hot, you mistake

the brake lights creeping up the highway ramps for wildfires the summer so hot, my name evaporates off your tongue

here i don’t remember the last time it went a day without raining lightning rips the sky apart it falls to shreds

i drink and drink the water rises mud bites at my feet needing dry land i search for your mouth but all i see are rows of teeth alligator eyes winced at the sight of me the thunder rings like a dinner bell ushering me to eat from your hand my hair wet drips in front of my face

unable to see i kneel unable to come up for water i sink further no matter how far i cast you away you return and i am the one pierced by the hook the gash curved into a smile

from above, i could see your shoulder as the smile of a boy eyeing me across the diner as the mustache i’d never see again wiped dry as the ache that comes from near-constant genuflect

from above i could see the wetlands as fields of wheat being watered instead of as endless marshes

Target Practice

As I dreamt of you drew you close through tangled tree I heard the footsteps of my mother in the dark the week after I told her I was trans. She approached her voice a hostile flash cut into the tendrils of the tree root her eyes burned red as she asked who is going to love you The sentence unfinished the echo completes it half man half nothing who is going to love you unevenly formed Unstirred unmoved I reply with pre-rehearsed sangfroid: I am a man and I will be loved A branch snaps I dismiss it turn away back into the dream of you we continue our curling decaying through the others’ gaze The snap resonates You lose shape your face obscured by whiteness your crotch obscured by cisness My fingers spit you out

I wake up hot and dry sit in the center of my room on the floor Duck on a lake hearing the rifle being loaded I try to recall the last time you said you cared for me I count Choke Start again I count wonder if I was spit out

in your dream too unable to swallow me so brown so trans. Choke

Start again. Limp on the ground I must Start again Hunched shapeless I must Start again recall the last time you said you cared for me I must Start again count back the hours from now. Thirty minutes ago I was still asleep holding you pale against me I am ill again Try telling myself you are gentle again but Men like you have pulled me apart before Hands like yours have disemboweled me before in that terror I confuse cis body for cis body Confuse white touch for white touch

Start again I try to recall the night before a loose smile as you got out of the car a tight one as you rushed back to kiss me I drove home lips curled in to preserve it until I Arrived and delivered the embrace back into the pillow I projected you onto Do you care for me Does it matter if you say you do I imagine you but I can only remember the humidity of that summer that hollowed me I can only remember so hot from breathing down my shirt to avoid sobbing I imagine youthe night before I close my eyes try to breathe into the warmth

of your face but I come up for air gasping because in your blond hair I see his and I am trapped in the arms of the first boy I loved I am trapped in the living room I am trapped to the backseat of his car where he let me hold him I am trapped to the park light of day snuffed out crouched in the gazebo his erection growing in my hand his face avoiding mine I trapped in the following afternoon as I tried to tell him I loved him He stood as if suddenly realizing he was tall Wind carefully ordering hair across his eyes he replied you are a female. i am a gay man trying to get you to love me is denying my gayness

As he spoke he stood firm yet ran off through wet grass when the silence set in

If his eyes were not so covered could he have pronounced these words as fact? Could he have looked into my face my hand my shoulder pronounced me female?

Could he have accused me of forcing him? or would the sight of me turn him inside out with the memory that it was he who ushered my male hand to him? Answerless I watch his body tumble into nothing.

On the floor of my bedroom trying to recall the last time you said you cared for me i return to the day after he ran off How I cried feet on the seat of a toilet to hide that I was in a bathroom I didn’t belong in I denied him

his existence? I denied him his existence? I reduced myself to nothing in the stall unseen Didn’t make sound to avoid hearing my voice float to too feminine a pitch I shriveled ash decomposed at the touch I became a grimacing vapor. Is it possible I became so good at denying my own existence that I denied his by accident?

No. Go back to sleep mom go back to sleep I am a man I will be loved

I breathe to prove to myself I am not condemned Grope around the floor to prove I am still here

Start again

A bird is out too early chirping into night at the sun of the streetlamp begging for dawn Do you find me hollow as he found me? If you called me as day broke to say you loved me would it only be “despite” my being trans or would you love me “through?” Would it be possible to even know?

You are not him I remind myself You are not him I command Start again I am a clay disk Hear the sound of me cracking midair Hunter Send your dog out for the body

Natasha Segebre, Tree Line