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Safiya 🌙

@safiyacherfi.bsky.social

300 followers 180 following 46 posts

Writes stories: short, literary, historical, sometimes speculative | Stories found in Gutter Magazine, The Selkie & more | Working on a collection | Love languages & history | Editor of Overtly Lit 🕊️🇵🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 https://linktr.ee/safiyacherfi

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Safiya 🌙 @safiyacherfi.bsky.social · May 31

Delighted to have a story in this beautiful issue! 🌊

Inner Worlds @innerworlds.bsky.social · May 30

🌸💀✨️ Issue 7 is out now! ✨️💀🌸

12 stories ready to break your heart, make you wince, fill you with bittersweet longing, or just make you kind of uneasy. You will feel things.

inner-worlds.ghost.io/issue-seven-...

#SFF #Horror #SpecFic #Fantasy #ScienceFiction #SpeculativeFiction #FlashFiction

Magazine cover with pink masthead, featuring a drawing of a hand reaching upwards towards green light, against a glitchy black background.

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Wear The Peace @wearthepeace.bsky.social · 23h

Saleh was 27 years old with his life ahead of him. He loved his people, he loved his religion, he loved his land. He covered the genocide for two years as the powers of the world tried to silence his voice. His voice will live on, even after the occupation ends. Glory to the martyrs.

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Wear The Peace @wearthepeace.bsky.social · 1d

The beloved Saleh Al-Jafarawi has been murdered. We are absolutely devastated. For 2 years he reported on the genocide of his people, just for him to be murdered during the ‘ceasefire’

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Out-Spoken Press @outspokenpress.bsky.social · 12d

DEADLINE EXTENDED
If you’re a poet of Arab heritage, writing in English anywhere in the world, with a poetry manuscript - you now have until 15 October to enter the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize!

> $2000
> US publication with Noemi Press
> UK publication with Out-Spoken Press

noemipress.submittable.com

Are you a writer of Arab heritage with a poetry manuscript?
DEADLINE EXTENDED - ENTER BY 15 OCTOBER
$2000 PRIZE
plus
US PUBLICATION
with Noemi Press
and
UK PUBLICATION with Out-Spoken Press
NOEMI
GUEST JUDGE:
Farid Matuk
SERIES EDITORS:
Fady Joudah, Hayan Charara
OUT SPOKEN PRESS
Etel Adnan Poetry Prize
For a first or second book by a writer of Arab heritage
NOEMIPRESS.SUBMITTABLE.COM

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Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 19d

Activists on board the Global Sumud Flotilla said they heard explosions and saw drone attacks late on Tuesday.

Gaza aid flotilla hit by drone attacks and explosions, activists say

Activists on board the Global Sumud Flotilla said they heard explosions and saw drone attacks late on Tuesday.

bit.ly

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Dónal Hassett @donalh.bsky.social · 20d

In a world with so little hope and so little moral constancy these are images of true joy.

Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 20d

Below are photos of Alaa Abdel Fattah free and at home with his sister, Sanaa, and mother, Laila.

It’s wonderful to see his beautiful smile again!

(Photos via his sister, Mona, on X)

#FreeAlaa

Smiling Alaa seated with his arm around his sister Sanaa

Smiling Alaa standing with his arm around his mother Laila

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Zarah Sultana MP @zarahsultana.bsky.social · 27d

A UN commission of inquiry has confirmed what was already clear: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The government’s position was already morally indefensible. It is now politically untenable.

Keir Starmer and his Labour ministers must be held criminally accountable.

A UN commission of inquiry has confirmed what was already clear: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

For nearly two years we’ve witnessed the deliberate slaughter of civilians, starvation of an entire population, and the systematic destruction of hospitals and essential infrastructure. This has been accompanied by open calls to annihilate Palestinians from Israel’s political and military leaders.

This is the most documented genocide in history.

Yet just two weeks ago, the UK government claimed it had not concluded Israel was acting with genocidal intent. It continues to arm Israel's genocide, provide RAF reconnaissance support and roll out the red carpet for Israeli war criminals.

The government’s position was already morally indefensible. It is now politically untenable.

Keir Starmer and his Labour ministers must be held criminally accountable.

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ArabLit & ArabLit Quarterly @arablit.bsky.social · 27d

‘A Life That Doesn’t Know How to Live’: New Poetry by Fatena Abu Mostafa

In this poem, by Fatena Mostafa, the narrator endures, "not out of strength, / but because even collapse has grown dull."

‘A Life That Doesn’t Know How to Live’: New Poetry by Fatena Abu Mostafa

In this poem, by Fatena Mostafa, the narrator endures, "not out of strength, / but because even collapse has grown dull."

arablit.org

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Dónal Hassett @donalh.bsky.social · 27d

Another major independent report led by experts confirms that Israel is perpetrating genocide. The Israeli government has denounced its authors as "Hamas proxies". The litany of crimes continues with impunity. Full sanctions and boycott are long overdue. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, UN commission of inquiry says

The panel finds that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out against Palestinians during the war.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Madeehah 🍉 ORPHAN PLANET OUT NOW! @madeehahwrites.bsky.social · Sep 13

I squealed when I saw this and had to take a seat on the stairs to read it. My novella has a review in Strange Horizons!!

Strange Horizons @strangehorizons.bsky.social · Sep 13

There are Reasons for This by Nini Berndt
reviewed by E. C. Barrett

Orphan Planet by Madeehah Reza
reviewed by Nileena Sunil

Memories From The Jungle by Tristan Garcia, trans. by Christopher Beach
reviewed by Will Emmons

Link to latest issue in bio!

#sciencefiction #scifi #sff #bookreviews

Left
cover of There are Reasons for This by Nini Berndt featuring a cloudy red background with the title in yellow letters all overlayed with red polka dots.

Right
REVIEWS
Quote
"There Are Reasons for This is unmistakably a novel of our times. While that might sound depressing, thanks to Berndt’s vivid, unexpected writing and fully imagined misfits, her portrayal of what it’s like to have to keep on getting on with life while the world is ending is unexpectedly cathartic."
reviewer: E. C. Barrett

8 September 2025
Strange Horizons

Left
cover of Orphan Planet by Madeehah Reza featuring a white background with fold lines and a large purple dot in the upper left.

Right
REVIEWS
Quote
"I really appreciated how this book allowed us to watch Elif grow into her own person amid extraordinary circumstances, and I really enjoyed how the character dynamics were written. The novella as a whole was really engaging..."
reviewer: Nileena Sunil

8 September 2025
Strange Horizons

Left
cover of Memories From The Jungle by Tristan Garcia, translated by Christopher Beach featuring a sketch of a chimpanzee looking up.

Right
REVIEWS
Quote
"In Memories From The Jungle, there can be no synthesis between civilization and nature. They must be kept totally apart. Humans must live on space stations and animals on the Earth. Otherwise they must destroy each other."
reviewer: Will Emmons

8 September 2025
Strange Horizons

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Safiya 🌙 @safiyacherfi.bsky.social · Sep 10

Read this piece by Alaa Alqaisi, especially if you've read Men in the Sun by Ghassan Kanafani.

'We Knocked Until Our Hands Broke' arablit.org/2025/05/23/w...

We Knocked Until Our Hands Broke

Gaza-based Palestinian author Alaa Alqaisi asks herself the question posed more than half a century ago at the end of Ghassan Kanafani’s “Men in the Sun”: Why didn’t they knock on…

arablit.org

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Molly Shah @mommunism.bsky.social · Sep 9

I‘m sharing a Palestinian account every day and today is Maram. Maram was a kindergarten teacher before this and her family had a farm with many greenhouses. The farm was destroyed and she lost her job. Maram is trying to help her large family including 5 siblings and a nephew, Jood who is only 2.

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History Workshop @historyworkshop.org.uk · Sep 9

The oldest surviving book owned by English speakers was a book made in North Africa.

In this article from our archive, Alison Hudson traces how these radical fragments reveal that immigrants and cultural exchange have always been fundamental to Britain.

Radical Object: A North African Book in the Early Medieval British Isles

The oldest surviving book owned by English speakers was a book made in North Africa. Alison Hudson traces how these radical fragments reveal that immigrants and cultural exchange have always been fundamental to British economies, culture,…

www.historyworkshop.org.uk

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Madeehah 🍉 ORPHAN PLANET OUT NOW! @madeehahwrites.bsky.social · Aug 31

Another one in the @innerworlds.bsky.social gang! Read this beautifully melancholic tale by Safiya with a hot cup of tea 🌊

Safiya 🌙 @safiyacherfi.bsky.social · Aug 26

P.s. I had a short story published a few months ago if you want to have a read ☺️🫶🏻

inner-worlds.ghost.io/deliver-safi...

Deliver by Safiya Cherfi

“The MacRae sisters tell me you were the first one to spot the creature?” He sounded like he’d jumped straight out of the BBC Radio the boys had sent their father from Edinburgh.

inner-worlds.ghost.io

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Safiya 🌙 @safiyacherfi.bsky.social · Sep 6

Oh thank you so much Madeehah! I was definitely going for folklore vibes 🫶🏻 haha yes I do on both sides actually

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Safiya 🌙 @safiyacherfi.bsky.social · Sep 6

Nothing like an overwhelming amount of ideas to cripple creativity (at least in my case) 😂

Reposted by Safiya 🌙

The Electronic Intifada @intifada.bsky.social · Aug 29

Gaza's journalists get massacred, Western press mollycoddles Israel electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-...

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Mondoweiss @mondoweiss.net · Aug 27

Israel uprooted 10,000 olive trees in al-Mughayyir during a three-day siege of the West Bank Palestinian village. The Israeli army stated that uprooting the trees was intended to “deter” village residents and make them “pay a heavy price.” mondoweiss.net/2025/08/isra...

Israel wanted to punish a Palestinian village. So it destroyed 10,000 of its olive trees.

mondoweiss.net

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Jonathan M. Katz @katz.theracket.news · Aug 27

A 1955 writer casually dropping a “Germans tended to go along with Nazis just like your all-American wife goes along with segregation” is both the answer and the question for “how we got here”

Jonathan M. Katz @katz.theracket.news · Aug 27

Hell of a passage to read in twenty twenty five

to Chicago or vice versa, the locat and, by transference, the community, too.
The German community-the rest of the seventy million Germans, apart from the million or so who operated the whole machinery of Nazism-had nothing to do except not to interfere. Absolutely nothing was expected of them except to go on as they had, paying their taxes, reading their local paper, and listening to the radio. Everybody attended local celebrations of national occasions-hadn't the schools and the stores always been closed for the Kaiser's birthday?—so you attended, too. Everybody contributed money and time to worthy purposes, so you did, too.
In America your wife collects or distributes clothing, gives an afternoon a week to the Red Cross or the orphanage or the hospital; in Germany she did the same thing in the Nazi Frauenbund, and for the same reasons. The Frauen-bund, like the Red Cross, was patriotic and humanitarian;
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The Lives Men Lead
did your wife ask the Red Cross if "Negro" plasma was segregated from "white"?
One minded one's own business in Germany, with or without a dictatorship. The random leisure which leads Americans into all sorts of afterhour byways, constructive, amusing, or ruinous, did not exist for most Germans. One didn't go out of one's way, on a day off, to "look for
trouble" thoro loon ta

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Safiya 🌙 @safiyacherfi.bsky.social · Aug 26

P.s. I had a short story published a few months ago if you want to have a read ☺️🫶🏻

inner-worlds.ghost.io/deliver-safi...

Deliver by Safiya Cherfi

“The MacRae sisters tell me you were the first one to spot the creature?” He sounded like he’d jumped straight out of the BBC Radio the boys had sent their father from Edinburgh.

inner-worlds.ghost.io

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Safiya 🌙 @safiyacherfi.bsky.social · Aug 26

A brilliant story Madeehah, as expected! I would love to read more work set in that world, soo much more I want to know about the guardians 👀

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jeeyon shim 심지연 @jeeyon.bsky.social · Aug 20

This is the best product listing copy I’ve ever read

Nothing lasts forever, and that includes the Roman Empire.

The Fall of Rome-Scented Candle smells like cypress trees and red wine. Light it and watch the Roman forum melt into a puddle of wax while you quietly contemplate the impermanence of civilizations and/or candles.

Do you think individual Romans understood that their civilization was collapsing? Or did it happen so gradually that they were able to ignore the warning signs—international trade breaking down, the senate becoming a rubber stamp for the supreme leader, and political violence becoming expected during transfers of power?

It’s hard to say, because it’s impossible to imagine being in that kind of situation. In any event—hope you enjoy the candle!

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Safiya 🌙 @safiyacherfi.bsky.social · Aug 20

Hope you are too, Madeehah! 💜 have you had any stories published lately for me to read? 😄

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Safiya 🌙 @safiyacherfi.bsky.social · Aug 18

Oh that’s so exciting, best of luck!

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Fadi Zaghmout @fadizaghmout.bsky.social · Aug 15

It’s 15th of August finally! The official launch of The Man of Middling Height by Syracuse University Press. My 4th book to be released in English, and one of my most creative works.

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The Electronic Intifada @intifada.bsky.social · Aug 15

“In Gaza, time doesn't simply pass; it rips through us.” #eiGazaDispatches

Time works differently in Gaza

A bombing takes seconds. It leaves a lifetime of pain.

electronicintifada.net

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