Writing All The Parts We Exile was as much a journey around finding my “writer’s” voice as it was reckoning with all the shame that had kept me from speaking about my experiences. At times, it felt relieving—joyful, even—and at other times, it felt terrifying. Reading the writing of others became a way to remind myself that vulnerability is scary and something meaningful can come of it. 

The following were books I read throughout the course of writing and releasing All The Parts We Exile.  Each book taught me something special about writing vulnerable, complex and honest stories—whether it be about voice and form, or themes that emerged in my writing.  

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Mexican Hooker #1, by Carmen Aguirre 

I was recommended this book while I was living in Vancouver, and never actually got around to reading it until I was writing this memoir. In ways, I think I arrived at Aguirre’s writing at a time when I really needed this book most. One of the questions I had while writing was: How do you write a piece that has space for your most meaningful, loving stories and painful stories of violence and loss? Aguirre’s Mexican Hooker #1 offered a possibility model for weaving together personal and familial histories, stories of trauma and resilience, stories that make you laugh and stories that make you ache. This book is fiercely personal and fiercely political. 

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Dirty River, by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Sararasinha

Dirty River is one of the books I recommend most to queer folks of colour. I was handed this book during graduate school by a counsellor who sensed the book had something to offer me. I felt in awe of the ways in which home is described, explored, grieved, dreamed of, yearned for. I dove into this book again while I was writing and contemplating my relationship to home. I was reminded of how much I love Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Sararasinha’s unapologetic writing style. As a reader, I feel the urge to read out loud, to have the words really land within me. Dirty River felt like an invitation to write unapologetically. Be upset! Be angry! Curse! Cry! Laugh! Soften! Write the truth! 

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We Have Always Been Here, by Samra Habib

In We Have Always Been Here, Habib brilliantly shares a coming-of-age story that explores faith, sexuality, family and community. During my writing process, sometimes a voice inside me would say this isn’t special enough. I would return to Habib’s memoir every time I asked myself “Why am I even writing this?” Each re-visiting of Habib’s memoir was a reminder that the stories of queer Muslims are sacred, special and worth telling. I would remember first reading Habib’s writing and thinking, being a queer Muslim is a beautiful, beautiful thing. It’s this kind of courageous, bold writing I leaned on in times of self-doubt and fear. 

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From the Ashes, by Jesse Thistle

I read this book within a day and a half. I had a hard time putting this memoir down. It’s exceptionally difficult to write about traumatic experiences and to do so in the raw, honest way that Thistle does. Thistle’s writing honoured the nuances of experiencing homelessness, addiction and violence. It refused to be reduced to a singular story or an individualistic resilience narrative that merely mimics the bootstrap myth. Instead, Thistle writes a complex story of trauma and healing, loss and connection, devastation and joy through his lens as a Métis-Cree man. 

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Islands of Decolonial Love, by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson  

Islands of Decolonial Love takes me back to being in my early 20s, trying to understand what relationship even means. I had never considered that what we understand as love, how we love and how we receive love is affected by colonialism (and other intersecting systems). I had never considered that love and liberation were interconnected. This is a book I will return to again and again in my lifetime. Simpson’s collection of stories explores the idea of decolonial love through shorts stories and poems centering Indigenous characters. It is generous and nuanced. Its brilliance lies not just in the content, but in the form, too. I am still in awe of how Simpson weaves indigenous identity and resistance into the form. 

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I Hope We Choose Love, by Kai Cheng Thom 

Kai Cheng Thom’s writing was on my mind as I grappled with writing an honest, compassionate portrayal of my mother. I wanted to write about the kind of love that grows over time, not necessarily in intensity but in depth and expansiveness. I wanted to write about a kind of love that felt nuanced and refused to fall into monolithic categories of “mom who doesn’t get it” and “modern woman.” What I continued to come back to from I Hope We Choose Love is what I held onto from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s work, too: the interconnectivity of love and liberation. Within the love and relationships that Kai Cheng Thom explores, there is a spaciousness I wanted to walk with. There is room for love to co-exist with anger and rage and grief and disappointment. There is room for mistakes and woundedness and growth and transformation and healing. 

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A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, by Alicia Elliot

I happened upon this book while on one of the final drafts of my memoir. I was supposed to be taking a break from reading memoirs. My partner brought it home and I was immediately drawn to the cover. I read it without knowing what it was about, or even that it was a memoir. Immediately, I was captivated by Elliot’s ability to move between personal story and systemic analysis. Elliot’s writing taught me essential things writing in a way that's deliberate, discerning and sharp. 

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Fireweed, by T'áncháy Redvers

Since finishing my book, I have been picking up Fireweed. Fireweed is a stunning collection of poetry exploring the experiences of woundedness and healing, told through the lens of an Indigenous two-spirit writer. Redvers consistently reminds readers that these experiences are not disconnected from the legacy of colonialism (and intersecting systems of oppression). The rhythmic nature of Redvers’ writing offers radical permission to diverge from the colonial ways we are taught to write, and instead, write in ways that mirror our unique voices, our distinct identities. In times where I am unsettled by the vulnerability on my own pages, Fireweed grounds me again. It reminds me that vulnerability can make way for something meaningful to emerge—personally and collectively.   

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Learn more about All the Parts We Exile: 

The youngest of three daughters, and the only one born in Canada soon after her parents' emigration from Iran, Roza Nozari began her life hungry for a sense of belonging. From her earliest years, she shared a passion for Iranian cuisine with her mother and craved stories of their ancestral home. Eventually they visited and she fell in love with Iran's sights and smells, and with the warm embrace of their extended family. Yet Roza sensed something was amiss with her mother's happy, well-rehearsed story of their original departure.

As Roza grew older, this longing for home transformed into a desire for inner understanding and liberation. She was lit up by the feminist texts in her women's studies courses, and shared radical ideas with her mother—who in turn shared more of her past, from protesting for the Islamic revolution to her ambivalence about getting married. In All the Parts We Exile, Roza braids a tender narrative of her mother's life together with her own ongoing story of self, as she arrives at, then rejects, her queer identity, eventually finds belonging in queer spaces and within queer Iranian histories, and learns the truth about her family's move to Canada.