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Are You Borg Now? 2nd Edition *PREORDER*

by Said Shaiye

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$18.00

About the Author

Said Shaiye is an Autistic + ADHD (AuHD) Somali Writer & Photographer in Minneapolis. He is represented by Mariah Stovall at Trellis Literary Management. He is a 2024 MacDowell Colony Fellow as well as a 2024 AWP Panelist: Autistic Writers On The Inaccessibility Of Professional Writing Spaces (Organizer, Participant); The Anti-Ableist Writing Workshop (Participant). He was nominated for a 2024 Pushcart Prize by Indiana Review for his essay SNEAK A UZI ON THE ISLAND IN MY ARMY JACKET LINING. His debut book, Are You Borg Now?, was a 2022 Minnesota Book Award Finalist in Creative Nonfiction & Memoir.He has published poetry & prose in Indiana Review, Texas Review, Obsidian, Brittle Paper, Pithead Chapel, 580 Split, Entropy, Diagram, and elsewhere. He has contributed essays to the anthologies Muslim American Writers at Home and We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World. He teaches writing at various community colleges in the Twin Cities, as well as with Unrestricted Interest, an organization dedicated to fostering a love of self expression in Autistic children. He has probably blocked you on social media. He hates pickles almost as much as he hates Taylor Swift.

are you borg now? 2nd edition

Blurbs

Are You Borg Now? heralds the arrival of a bold and important voice. Shaiye’s deeply personal self-interrogation blurs genre and form to examine how intersections between culture, race, class, gender and nationality shape one’s identity. Vulnerable, affecting, humorous and haunting, so often I clutched my chest and nodded in agreement to Shaiye’s keen observations. The reflections collected in these pages will benefit all who read this book.”

Donald Quist

author of Harbors & For Other Ghosts

“Why should one write? This is the question that pervades Said Shaiye’s experimental approach to memoir in Are You Borg Now? This book offers many different kinds of answers to such a question, answers that involve facing the effects of trauma and violence with courage, honesty, and a willingness to risk vulnerability. One reason to write is to call forth a voice in solidarity with others who suffer. Shaiye is a writer who transforms the pain of alienation into beautifully lyric writing and from that writing springs a profound faith that one is never really alone.”

Kathryn Nuernberger

author of The Witch of Eye

“This book cut me as it wowed me. Shaiye can’t help it. He invites you in. But he doesn’t want you there. He doesn’t want to be there himself, but needs to be. On every page, I found a reflection of an America that sickens and alienates with its easy fast food and easy pop culture. But then, Shaiye recognizes quality, too. And you recognize yourself in it even as you gain Shaiye’s very particular viewpoint. Every page you find Shaiye struggling to be okay, to be good, to both honor his culture and struggle to move it forward towards health. This is an honorable project. This is a courageous project. This is the Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.”

Geoff Herbach

award-winning author of Hooper & Stupid Fast