noam keim - "The Land is Holy" - Stephen Patrick Bell

“I don’t think you ever move on from leaving a life behind.”

noam keim will discuss The Land is Holy. They will be joined in conversation by Stephen Patrick Bell. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion. 

At the Co-op

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About the Book

Flora and fauna populate the lyrical essays in The Land is Holy, where natural life is used to glean respite, healing, and stubborn lessons on survival. Home has meant many different things to noam keim. Born a Queer Arab Jew in a settler family in Occupied Palestine, raised in the cobblestone streets of Mulhouse, France; a lifetime of escape across Europe, the foothills of Himalayas in Nepal, Bangkok, and then the makings of a chosen family on Occupied Lenape Land, known as Philadelphia. Through it all, the memory of one’s homes, the persistence of kin persecuted across timelines, their complicity in settler colonialism, and a dogged disavowal of inherited trauma.

In this staunchly anti-zionist and abolitionist project, the author considers the wounds of diaspora ache by turning to the fierce primal inhabitants of their lineage for answers. The stork in cyclical rotation, the bitter shiba, the prickly sweet Sabra, the blooming Lindens form larger-than-life metaphors in these essays. Surviving through violent crises and cruel political turns of hand, they are the salve to a world that can be possible with nurture. keim writes, “I want to believe that we carry, in our bodies and bones and blood, the particles of the leaves and flowers that saw our lineages past. Kin.” And in turn they urge us to find kinship with the world that wants us alive and buoyant.

About the Author

noam keim (they/them) is a trauma worker, medicine maker and flâneur freak. Their non-fiction writing weaves themes close to their heart: reverence to the land, healing, queerness, colonialism, plants, abolition. They are a Lambda Literary ’22 Fellow, an RWW ’23 Fellow, a Tin House ’23 Fellow, a Sewanee ’23 contributor and a Periplus ’23 Fellow mentored by Grace Talusan. The Land is Holy (Radix Co-Op, 2024) is their debut book. Connect on Twitter and IG: thelandisholy or thelandisholy.com.

About the Interlocutor

Stephen Patrick Bell (he/him) is a writer, editor, and producer raised in New York by Jamaican immigrants, currently based in Chicago where he produced shows for The Moth StorySLAM and 2nd Story. A 2022 Lambda Literary Fellow in fiction, a Summer 2023 Tin House fellow, and a 2024 Kenyon Review Writers Workshop attendee, his work has appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, Interview Magazine, The Rumpus, The Chicago Review of Books, The Lambda Literary Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. He is currently working on a novel.