Participate in a creative writing workshop led by Palestinian author Heba Hayek and Lebanese poet Nur Turkmani.

What does it mean to write from a place rather than merely about it? How have the places we come from shaped our ways of seeing? How do we shape a place in return through story, attention, witness?

In this two-hour workshop, we will explore place as a living, breathing thing. Through reading, discussion and writing exercises, we will think of writing as a way of staying with a place’s histories, contradictions and possibilities.

This workshop is part of a series of events marking the launch of Nur Turkmani’s debut poetry collection, October, reflecting on transformation and loss over six autumns in Lebanon since 2019.

This event is a collaboration between Hajar Press, Maqam Books and Mosaic Rooms.

Nur Turkmani is a writer from Beirut. Her work appears in Poetry, New England Review, Copper Nickel, The Rumpus and others. Her debut poetry collection, October, was published by Hajar Press in 2026 and is longlisted for the 2026 Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection. Nur was awarded the Anthony Veasna So Scholarship for fiction from The Adroit Journal.

Heba Hayek is a London-based, Gaza-raised Palestinian author, creative and facilitator. She completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Miami University, Ohio, and studied for an MA in Social Anthropology at SOAS University of London. Heba’s first book, Sambac Beneath Unlikely Skies, won the Creative Award in the 2022 Palestine Book Awards and was chosen as a 2021 Book of the Year by The White Review, Middle East Eye and The New Arab.

Visit the Mosaic Rooms website to book a free ticket.