WORDS UNWHISPERED Ghazals in the Time of the Pandemic, 2021

Pamela L. Laskin is a lecturer in the English Department at City College, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate Children'sWriting, and directs the Poetry Outreach Center. Several of her children's and poetry books have been published. Ronit and Jamil, A Palestinian/Israeli Romeo and Juliet in verse was published by Harper Collins in 2017, and was named among the 35 books to haveon your radar for 2017. Bea, a picture book, was a finalist for the Katherine Paterson Prize for Children's Fiction in 2018. She is thewinner of the 2018 International Fiction Prize from Leapfrog Press, and Why No Bhine, an epistolary novel about the Rohingya Muslims, was published in 2019. The Operating System published a bilingual picture book, Monster Maria, which is about Hurricane Maria, andis being used as a fundraiser for after-school programs in Puerto Rico. Linus Press published My Secret Wish about families seeking asylum, and is also being used as a fundraiser for Immigrant Families Together. The Lost Language of Crazy, a middle grade-novel, was published in November, 2021 (Atmosphere Press). She is currently at work with Ukrainian author Vasyl Makhno on a YA novel in verse, Wisteria and Weeds, whose focus is on the war in the Ukraine, and what it means for the lives of teens.Finally, she is this year's (2023) recipient of Judith's Room Freedom Through Literacy Board option prize for her current novel.Follow her: twitter@RonitandJamil and follow her blog: http: //PamelaLaskin.blogspot.com