Holly Mason Badra, MFA ’17 and now Associate Director of Women and Gender Studies, recently published an anthology of literature from Kurdish writers. Featuring poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and graphic work by emerging and well-established writers, Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora (University of Arkansas Press) shines a light on works by a diverse group of contemporary Kurdish women and nonbinary writers living in Kurdistan and in diaspora. In the interview below, Badra reflects not only on the new book but also on her time at Mason.
What inspired your work toward Sleeping in the Courtyard?
I come to this work as a daughter of Kurdish diaspora. I wanted to honor my family and community with this collection. I wanted to give myself and others like me a collection that I desperately wish I had sooner in my life. The aim of this project is to spread understanding and dismantle misconceptions about Kurds and Kurdish women, to celebrate Kurdish writers and culture, and to resist erasure. When I started this book in 2019 nothing like it existed yet. There were anthologies that featured Arab and Arab American writers. There were anthologies that featured poetry by Arab women. There were anthologies that featured work by Iranian writers. But the only anthologies at the time that were available in English and featured Kurdish writers were not very accessible and showcased work mostly (if not exclusively) by men. So, I wanted to create a space where the work of Kurdish women and nonbinary writers was carefully collated and also widely accessible to various audiences. I wanted to see us joining the conversations and bookshelves alongside other collections with similar theming.
From the book’s introduction: “Through connecting with other Kurdish writers and Kurdish writing, I have been able to see my family’s stories reflected and crystallized. More than that, as a daughter of diaspora, I have started to see my own world and experiences reflected as a queer, Kurdish American woman spanning various colliding spaces. That reflection has been incredibly nourishing. Unexpectedly. I didn’t know how much I needed to talk with others who have similar intersecting identities. It’s been life-altering to be reflected in these ways, to be so understood. Connecting with other Kurdish writers and artists in this process has been uplifting and heart-healing—and I know I am not alone in those sentiments.”
What was your selection and editing process like? Was there any author or any specific work you wanted to include that you couldn’t?
When I started this anthology, I read as much as I could from other anthology editors about compiling their collections (like, for example, this roundtable in The Rumpus). At the time, there wasn’t a lot out there, so I started to reach out to anthology editors to have conversations about their processes. One thing that became clear to me is that for this book, I did not want to do a call for submissions. I really wanted this collection to be intimate and affirming. I wanted to avoid offending writers. I wasn’t interested in serving as a judge. So, I got to know the writers in the book before I invited their work into the project. Instead of asking them to provide work, I read all of their work and, for some, I made selection suggestions from their work. I asked the poets if I could use specific poems that I had fallen in love with but also that I thought would offer range (in style and content) in the collection. For the novelists, I suggested a few excerpt options and then let them tell me which were their favorites. For some writers, I met with them to edit. For some writers, I asked if they’d be interested in writing a piece based on conversations we’d had. I wanted to make sure we had as much variety as possible, so this was really on my mind in the curation process.
In organizing the pieces, I also thought about taking the reader on a journey that offered some moments of respite. Many of the pieces are heavy and demanding, so I tried to balance those with some of the lighter, more ethereal works. I tried to balance poetry and prose to give the reader some space to breathe. I really enjoyed writing the introduction to offer framing and address the key themes that brought me to the collection and that show up in the collection. I wanted to provide context but also to speak to my own personal connections to the work. I wanted the introduction to be informative and educational while also having a heartbeat. Then I worked with the press on further edits for publication, both macro and micro, and ultimately came back to the translators and contributors for their opinions on any suggested copyedits to their pieces. I wanted to make sure they had agency in this process, too.
I love the second part of this question—no one has asked me this yet. I really wanted to include a chapter from Nadia Murad’s The Last Girl, and I was in touch with her co-author, Jenna Krajeski, who then gave me Nadia’s contact information, but sadly I never received a reply from Nadia or her representatives. I would have loved to include her work, her experience, her voice in the book. Maybe in future projects!
How did the MFA program at George Mason help you in terms of prepping for this project —or your craft or career generally?
The George Mason MFA program gave me the gift of being involved in various opportunities that developed the skillset needed to curate a collection like Sleeping in the Courtyard. I’ll name some specific examples. My work as a blog editor for So to Speak gave me practice in/ taught me the art of reaching out to writers to solicit work and conversation. Balancing life as both a graduate student and a GTA teaching two undergraduate courses each semester taught me the necessity of keeping myself and my creative projects organized. Briefly being involved in the early days of Stillhouse Press opened my mind to what it takes to organize a book for publication and what is involved in the marketing process. Within the MFA program, I grew as a creative, a professional, and a literary steward. It became important to me that I become an ethical custodian of works by marginalized writers, and this has no doubt influenced the process by which I curated this anthology.
Oh, also, the two poems of mine that I included in the collection, “Waiting” and “Qurban,” I wrote in the MFA program! I wrote “Qurban” in a workshop with Jen Atkinson (which was improved by her feedback), and I wrote “Waiting” for my thesis under the guidance of Sally Keith and Eric Pankey.
How has your work editing this collection inspired or influenced your own writing?
Editing this collection has made me want to invest more in my nonfiction work. I’ve started a few essays and essay projects that I put on pause while focusing on Sleeping in the Courtyard. But these pieces offer another way for me to think about, unpack, and speak to the Kurdish diasporic experience. I’d like to carve out space to return to the nonfiction pieces and collection, Insh’Allah!
What’s the last great book (poetry or otherwise) that you read? And what made it great?
What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo. This memoir really moved me with its blend of personal reportage and research-heavy analysis. I’m looking forward to Foo’s next book forthcoming about parenting with complex trauma.
October 16, 2025