Anjoli Roy

I first encountered the genius who is Tala Khanmalek (aka mecca monarch + @insurgentpoetics ) in May 2022 when they submitted materials for the literature-and-music podcast I cohost in Honolulu with Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng, It’s Lit with PhDJ. We had just published an episode featuring heidi andrea restrepo rhodes, whom I’d met at VONA years earlier, and heidi had done us the honor of sharing our call for materials with Tala.

This, and processes like this, is how community blooms. I know this even though I also don’t understand how Tala and I have still not yet officially met in person, as of this writing (though we were in the same room once in 2018!). Tala’s work draws you close, and the intimacy their work creates is a testament to their creations.

As part of their submission to It’s Lit and that first episode we ended up making together, Tala shared the first piece they’d written about their father after his death. I was struck by the complex feelings of love and critique Tala was able to hold at the same time for him and his “posthumously found objects.” Today, I’m thrilled to see this piece is now part of Tala’s chapbook An Infinity of Traces, forthcoming with Blue Cactus Press in late 2026. I am so looking forward to holding this chap in my hands.

The conversation that follows (link in stories!!) touches on ekphrasis, what it means to write into the space between us, how uncategorizable both love and liberatory writing are, the ceremonies that must be found amid this era of violence with ICE and the US-Israeli war machine, the link between parenthood and grief, a butterfly who is also a grandpa, and much more.