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Karuna

@karunariazi

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📚 Kidlit author
🎓#hamlinemfac 21
💖 Blasian Muslim magical girl
Rep: @agentthao
NEW: Sabrena Swept Away ('25)
Please see site for contact info ✨

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Full sail ahead into a New Year...and a new adventure! 🌊

Presenting SABRENA SWEPT AWAY, a Thousand and One Nights-inspired middle grade portal fantasy with shades of Spirited Away and The Last Mapmaker (!) starring a Blasian Muslim heroine (!!) and coming to your shelves from @greenwillowbook on June 18, 2024 (!!!).

After a rough ride on the stormy seas of drafting, I’m really praying Sabrena will find safe harbor in readers’ hearts, particularly with @marthamilhalick’s loving eye on her maiden voyage and @agentthao’s as always unwavering support. (Speaking of support, this is my SECOND book that was started at @hamlinemfac - a semester after #ABitofEarth with the wonderful @rhymeswithcapri - in case you needed yet another reminder of the inherent magic in the program and its incredible faculty ❤️)

More deets + preorder links can be found on the HarperCollins page for Sabrena (and will be added to my website shortly), and I’ve seen reading tracker sites have it listed now, but please do feast your eyes on the cover, illustrated by INCREDIBLE @lavanyanaidu and designed by Sylvie Le Floc’h, before heading out with the tide (okay, my nautical references end now).

On a serious note, I have been deeply conflicted and cognizant of the ill timing of a book announcement and cover reveal in the midst of pain, suffering and loss experienced hourly by brown and Black children like Sabrena, including an alarming rise in violent Islamophobia. Even as I hope you take the news of her impeding arrival with joy, I also hope that you are doing everything in your power to end the ongoing genocides and the suffering, displacement and deaths of the children we authors and our craft are in service to (to paraphrase the wonderful Jason Reynolds).

#middlegrade #greenwillowbooks #coverreveal #middlegradefantasy #middlegradeadventure #athousandandonenights #arabiannights by @karunariazi

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3 years ago

In 1911, readers entered The Secret Garden with Mary Lennox.

Now, in 2023, join Maria Latif in discovering A BIT OF EARTH.

Welcome to the cover reveal for A BIT OF EARTH (@greenwillowbooks, March 14, 2023), with so much gratitude for its beauty to

Artist: Shreya Gupta (@shreyaillustrations)
Hand-lettering: Ryan O'Rourke (@orourkestudio)
Designer: Sylvie Le Floc’h

Also, wonderful editor (@marthamilhalick) and agent extraordinaire (@agentthao), and @ohmylorelei and @hamlinemfac for giving me my bit of earth to dream in ❤

A BIT OF EARTH is a contemporary middle grade retelling of The Secret Garden, in which young Maria Latif - upon losing her activist parents - must move to live with her father's college friends on Long Island, New York.

Told in a hybrid blend of prose and verse, it expands the original's themes of healing after loss, the warmth and hope of found family and the joy of finding your place in the world - a place that allows you to bloom into your own bright and beautiful potential.

Please PREORDER this timely and important story from your favorite retailer - please support your local indie. It is also available on B&N and Amazon as well, and others to come. Links available on the HarperCollins website + my website (link in bio) - and remember to save those receipts 🌱✨

Planning to buy it later on? Remember the title by adding it on GoodReads and Storygraph.

Thank you for supporting me, my words and my dreams. It truly means so much. ❤ by @karunariazi

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4 years ago

✨ Birthday girl with her birthday treat (Alhamdulillah) ✨ by @karunariazi

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2 months ago

Sad day, gray day, odd and bitter and painful day to have what should be good news: A BIT OF EARTH is now in paperback. I don’t want to post about it, any more than I’ve wanted to post any recent book news in the past few years of wound upon wound inflicted on my local and global communities, which always feels like wanting to be celebratory at a never-ending janazah, except to use the occasion and observe that it feels, increasingly, the fantasies I write are not so much the talking lizards and healing gardens and undersea palaces so much as brown and Black children being able to dwell in these marvelous concoctions instead of the bitter realities of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate, anti-Blackness, violence and genocides.

When I first started writing, and particularly when I wrote this poem in A BIT OF EARTH, critiquing the lack of security for young Muslim children anywhere, I did so with the (increasingly dwindling) hope that another generation would be spared the anxiety and fear about their lives, their masjids, for their parents and uncles and aunties and grandmothers and grandfathers related and not, their international siblings and cousins and kinfolk and loved ones known and not, that I constantly carried at that age.

I am so, so sad today. About all of it, but also and especially that they have not been. That, too, continues to be a fantasy.

Please swipe through and see my reshares for information on how to support the community in San Diego, particularly the families of the victims, and please keep them and their families in your prayers. Dear friend and sister @haneenbintfalasteen is from this community and has a great deal of information in her stories and reshares as well, and incredible local indie bookstore @mystgalaxybooks is also providing information and support. by @karunariazi

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5 months ago

Happy #indiebookstoreday! Still so grateful my career was so lovingly cheered on and started off by my forever favorites at @booksofwonder all the way back in 2017 (look at that baby face trying to figure out her author signature) ✨

I know I am not the only author who wouldn’t still be hanging in if it wasn’t for our local indies thinking of me and making a point to carry me when *cough* certain other places would not. Thank you all. ♥️ Tell your local bookseller I said hi and thank you for your service today (and let me know who you may be paying a visit today and what titles you plan to get!) #independentbookstoreday by @karunariazi

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6 months ago

Spring is in the air, and so is a sale! Take joy in your own Bit of Earth (e-book) for $0.99 starting today, 4/23, to Sunday, 4/26. For more info and your desired store links: https://tinyurl.com/abitofearthebooksale

(Brief pitch/refresher: A Bit of Earth is a MG contemporary retelling of the classic Secret Garden told in poetry + prose - a great gift for any young reader for National Poetry Month!) by @karunariazi

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6 months ago

🌿 When loneliness takes root, sometimes all it needs is a bit of earth to blossom into hope.

A Bit of Earth by Karuna Riazi is a tender and imaginative middle-grade novel about grief, growth, and discovering strength in unexpected places. Through friendship, self-discovery, and a touch of wonder, this story explores what it means to nurture something and in doing so, nurture yourself.

With themes of resilience, family, and quiet courage, this heartfelt read reminds us that even the smallest seed of hope can grow into something beautiful.

Available on our shelves at Sabiqoun Books! Step into a story of healing and discovery that will stay with you long after the final page. Link in bio!

If you found a hidden garden, what would you plant first? Tell us below ⬇️

Here’s to stories that blossom. 🌱 by @karunariazi

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7 months ago

A nice little surprise on the first Friday of Ramadan: my Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection award for SABRENA SWEPT AWAY arrived! Thank you again, @jrlibraryguild ✨ by @karunariazi

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8 months ago

Ramadan Mubarak! We’ve made it to this beautiful, transformative month, Alhamdulillah.

May Allah accept everyone’s fasts and answer everyone’s duas, may our hearts be filled with hope and bravery to do what is right and strive toward collective peace and liberation for all, and may all those oppressed, facing genocide and suffering receive justice and ease. 🤲🏽 by @karunariazi

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8 months ago

Annie’s MG Party Mix, Ep. 8 live with MG author Karuna Riazi, author of many books including the awesome MG: The Gauntlet! Thank you sis for being a guest on this series it was fantastic to learn about your journey to publication and your amazing books.. I sincerely hope you will make it to Australia for a visit one day soon, don’t worry - we will keep the spiders away! (Lol)

@karunariazi @salaamreads

#anniesmgpartymix #middlegradereads #middlegradebookstagram #weneeddiversebooks #representationmatters by @karunariazi

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9 months ago

Welcome back to Annie’s MG Party Mix!! We are kicking off February with episode 8 tomorrow, Monday 2 February, 9AM AEDT with special guest MG author Karuna Riazi!!

Annie’s MG Party Mix is the new live series I created right here on IG where I go live with fellow Middle Grade authors to discuss writing.. journeys to publication and of course: book recommendations!! A great chance to chat live and support my fellow MG author friends!!

Join us for episode 8 as I go live with fellow MG author Karuna Riazi, who was one of my first readers and provided an endorsement for my book. So excited to be discussing her journey to publication and her books which include one of my absolute faves; The Gauntlet which I tell everyone is a Muslim Jumanji!!

@karunariazi

#anniesmgpartymix #middlegradebookstagram #middlegradeauthor #weneeddiversebooks #middlegradereads by @karunariazi

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9 months ago

When I look at me in 2016, all I can think is: she’s so painfully young.

She hasn’t taught middle and high school yet, or had her first corporate job. She doesn’t even have her first degree. Her uncle and her paternal grandmother, both of which she will lose unexpectedly within the next school year, are still alive. She’s probably ducking reporters on her campus who are looking to add a sprinkle of *diversity* to their coverage of the first presidential debate. Her debut novel is a year away from publication, and she’s scrambling to the library in between classes to peck away at edits. She’s unagented and making unhinged decisions like looking over her own contracts by herself. She’s just trying to make it as an author. She’s waiting for her big moment when everything makes sense and she knows what she’s doing.

Honestly, I still feel painfully young ten years later, and like there’s a lot I should have done differently in that moment in time. I’m still learning, three degrees in. I’m still trying to make it as an author, five books in. I’m still waiting for my big moment when everything makes sense and I know what I’m doing.

At least I can say my fashion has gotten better. by @karunariazi

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9 months ago