MSI Press Blog

  Excerpt from Syrian Folktales by Muna Imady - Note from the Author Kan ya ma kan are magical words that carry me back into my Tete’s little red bedroom forty years ago. I see myself sitting on her bed listening to her stories on a very cold winter night. The lit soba in the corner of the room casts shadows on the walls. The shadows dance and transform themselves into the characters created by Tete. I reach my hands towards them, but they slip away. Tete laughs and takes out a bag of pistachios from under her pillow and fills my little hands with them. Most of the stories I remember Tete telling me were told to me in the evenings. I wonder… was it a matter of convenience, or did Tete believe that darkness was the best time to tell stories? Actually, in the old days, Arabs felt that telling stories in daylight was bad luck. Daytime was naturally for serious and domestic housework, while night was the time for stories of make-believe. In the Euphrates region, people still say: “ Ill

  photo includes Princess Muna of Jordan (mother of King Abdullah) in the center and Dr. Betty Leaver, MSI Press editor, second from the right; others - members of a visiting delegation We are happy tp provide you with a taste of the Middle East. Each of the books below contains nuggets and insights that are hard to find elsewhere -- written by the residents of the Middle East. Follow the links to more information. Damascus amid the War by Muna Imady Written by popular author, Muna Imady, whose book, Syrian Folktales, has delighted an uncountable number of readers outside of Syria, Damascus amid the War tells the very human story of the devolution of a society. The book containts 29 pre-war poins, vibrant with imagery of daily life in a robust Damascus. The 100 war poems that follow show the devastating affect on the people who navigate a daily existence after war came. This is a posthumous publication, containing Muna’s very last works and an introduction by her mother, Elaine Imady,

  Excerpt from  Syrian Folktales   by Muna Imady      A Brief Overview of Syria   The Syrian Arab Republic occupies an area of 185,000 square km. and has a population of more than 18 million.  It borders Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan and Palestine to the south and Lebanon and the Mediterranean to the west.   Syria also lies along major trade routes linking Africa, Asia and Europe . Since the dawn of civilization, Syria has been a meeting place and a crossroads, where different people, cultures and world empires met.  Syrian soil has witnessed the oldest civilizations on the globe dating back to the fourth millennium B.C., including Mari, Ebla and Ugarit where one the world’s first alphabets was discovered. Syria ’s chief agricultural products are cotton, wheat, barley, different fruits and vegetables, meat, milk and milk products.  Important industrial products include textiles, fertilizer, petroleum products, cement, glass, processed foods, marble

  Muna Imady: February 18, 1962- April 23, 2016 ABOUT THE AUTHOR My daughter, Muna Imady, was born in Damascus and grew up in an American-Syrian bi-lingual family. She began writing at a very young age. As a little girl, Muna would say, “I am Muna Imady, a writer and a poet." When she first uttered these words, she was perhaps seven years old, and we would laugh. But as soon as she could write, a pen and pad were seldom out of her hand, and she filled page after page with her poems and stories. After graduation from Damascus University, Muna worked for several years for an oil company, then married Nizar Zikar who was studying for a PhD in France. The first years of her marriage were spent in France, in which time she got a Master’s from the Paris Sorbonne and her daughter Nour and her son Sammy were born. When Muna and Nizar came back to Damascus, Muna began writing Arabic stories for several popular children's magazines, and dozens of these stories were published. A

Released today, Damascus amid the War by Muna Imady, author of Syrian Folktales .    For more information about Muna and her books, click HERE .

Colorin' Colorado features Syrian Folktales as a n excellent way to gain better English language skills and learn a lot about Syria in the process. Muna Imady, the author, was a teacher, so Colorin' Colorado, you made a good call! The book is on sale at a big discount on Amazon . Learn more about the book HERE . See posts about Muna Imady and her book HERE .

Wishing all our Islamic friends, fans, and readers Ramadan mubarak wa kareem.  Here are some books that can take your attention away from long days of fasting: Damascus amid the War Poems and stories from before the war in Syria and during the war by a Damascene experiencing the war first-hand. The pre-war poetry reflects the rich and joyful life that existed then, and the poems and stories written later reflect the starkness and fearfulness of life that now surrounds Damascus and its inhabitants. Introductory Lectures on Religious Philosophy This series of lectures is an overview of five ancient philosophical traditions, focusing on the following questions: More than a series of lectures, this collection of dialogues addresses the following questions: What is the relationship between religion and philosophy? What social and psychological functions do religions serve? What does it mean to be educated? Professor Sabzevary's intellectual nuance is matched only by his clarity, not onl

    Today's fortune cookie is associated with Syrian Folktales (M. Imady).  Read more about Muna and her books HERE . Get a copy at  MSI Press webstore . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.  Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can! Find their contact information on our  Authors' Pages .    

We like to think that MSI Press is a family, but sometimes, we have families among our authors. One such family is the Imady family from Damascus, Syria. Elaine Imady, the mother, met her sweetheart in New York and moved with him to his home country of Syria, where she raised three bicultural children. Her love story is told in Road to Damascus . Read more about Elaine and her book HERE .     Muna Imady, the daughter, wrote a beloved and popular book,  Syrian Folktales . Not long after, she died following heart surgery, leaving a mostly finished, unpublished book, Damascus amid the War, due out in August 2020. Elaine and daughter #32, Sausan, put the finishing touches on the book, including a touching memorial to Muna that had been published in the  New York Times . Read more about Muna, her life, and her books  HERE . Dr. Omar Imady, the son, is a professor of political science who has written a number of fiction and non-fiction books about Syria, Middle Ea

                    One of the fun things that a publisher (or at least, an acquisitions editor) gets to experience is meeting more than one member of a family -- as authors whose work we publish, In this series of presenting family authors, we take note of the Imady writers, who have written several exciting and award-winning books. Above pictured, left to right, is Elaine Imady, the mother of Muna (daughter) and Omar (son). Elaine's book, Road to Damascus , a memoir of her physical and emotional journey from New York to Syria with her husband, Mohammed, was the first runner-up in the Eric Hoffer Legacy Award competition. Muna, who published two books with MSI Press -- the popular Syrian Folktales and the gut-wrenching Damascus amid the War , passed away suddenly and unexpectedly just as she finished the latter book; may she rest in peace. Omar's MSI Press books are quite different one from another: The Rise and Fall of Muslim Civil Society and When You're Shoved from th

  It is Tuesday. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side.  This week's conversation addresses the benefits of "twinning" as a book writing and publishing option. Twinning refers to when a new book resembles an older book. MSI Press has several such twins in its book collection. Let's look at ways twinning at help with book sales -- and what are the various models for twinning, noting upfront that twinning is not the same as producing a series since, with twinning, the books are by different authors. Here are some twinning options among MSI Press books. Using other (successful) books as models for format In this case, an author follows the formatting (or approach) of another author.