In Rebels by Accident by Patricia Dunn, Mariam Just Wants to Fit In. That’s not easy when she’s the only Egyptian at her high school and her parents are super traditional. So when she sneaks into a party that gets busted, Mariam knows she’s in big trouble. She gets shipped off to Cairo, and embarks on a journey to find her true self.

And from personal journeys, we move to the journey of a whole community in Sara Aharon’s From Kabul to Queens: The Jews of Afghanistan and Their Move to the United States and discover the story of a small Jewish community that lived in relative peace with its Sunni Muslim neighbors.

About the Authors

Elyssa Friedland

Elyssa Friedland attended Yale University, where she served as managing editor of the Yale Daily News. She is a graduate of Columbia Law School and subsequently worked as an associate at a major firm. Prior to law school, Elyssa wrote for several publications, including Modern Bride, New York magazine, Columbia Journalism Review, CBS MarketWatch.com, Yale Alumni Magazine, and Your Prom. She grew up in New Jersey and currently lives in New York City with her husband and three young children.

Falguni Kothari

Falguni Kothari is a New York-based hybrid author. She writes in a variety of genres sewn together by the colorful and cultural threads of her South Asian heritage and expat experiences. She’s published in India in contemporary fiction with global e-book availability.

Henry Webb

Henry Webb worked for the New York Times, became a school teacher and later worked for the Department of Labor in New York City, but never stopped writing and reading his favorite authors: Dostoevsky, Conrad and Faulkner. A native of Jacksonville, FLA, he went to college in Chicago, lived in Hawaii for almost two years and won a scholarship for the Iowa Writers Workshop in the 1970’s. He has been attending Writing Workshops at Sarah Lawrence College since 2008, where he edited the collection “The Thursday Class”.

Patricia Dunn

Patricia Dunn’s writing has appeared in Salon.com, Christian Science Monitor, Village Voice, The Nation, LA Weekly, and others.

With an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College, where she also teaches, the Bronx- raised rebel and former resident of Cairo is now settled in Connecticut, with her husband, teenage son, and toddler dog.

Sara Aharon

Sara Y. Aharon studied modern Jewish history and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University and New York University. In 2012 she was named to The Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36 “honorees list of young leaders contributing to and impacting the Jewish community. She has spoken about her research on the Jews of Afghanistan at universities, synagogues, and public libraries, including the 92nd St. Y; Harvard; Columbia University; the University of Maine-Orono; Fifth Avenue Synagogue; the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue; and most recently at the Albany JCC.