HI! I’m Fiza Pirani, an independent journalist, writer and editor based in Atlanta, Georgia. I’m also founder of the award-winning immigrant mental health newsletter Foreign Bodies, born in 2018 from a reporting fellowship with The Carter Center, and help run the Refaat Alareer Mobile Library, a volunteer-run traveling library in Atlanta created in honor of the martyred Palestinian poet and professor Dr. Refaat Alareer.

My interests in writing and journalism largely center themes of mental health and radical vulnerability, of living within manmade borders and the search for footing in an ever-changing world.

Freelance work has appeared in The Guardian, Teen Vogue, Colorlines, Electric Literature, Elemental, Gizmodo, 285 South, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Emory Magazine, Georgia Tech Magazine among others. Previously, I was managing editor of The AJC’s Pulse Magazine and a web producer and writer for the local Atlanta newspaper. I also served as communications officer for FOCUS Humanitarian, an international crisis response and disaster risk management nonprofit.

When I’m not writing, editing or reading, I’m learning how to paint! You can browse my work at my art shop or on Instagram.

My newsletter, Foreign Bodies, was named one of the 80 best single-operator newsletters on the internet by Inside Hook and one of the top 10 media of 2021 by the Asian American Journalists Association

Recipient, Substack Inaugural Independent Writers Grant (2020)
Recipient, Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism (2018)

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The Bánh Mì Chronicles interview on immigrant mental health and what it means for Asian communities. Listen here.

The South Asian Avant-Garde: A Dissident Literary Anthology (video interview series). Watch here.

The Substack Podcast interview on journalism, Foreign Bodies, mental health and more. Listen here.

Alma interview for Minority Mental Health month. View here.

The Correspondent interview on Foreign Bodies. Read here.

VoyageATL interview for the Trailblazers: Rewriting the Narrative series. Read here.

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Foreign Bodies

A newsletter centering immigrant and refugee experiences with a mission to de-stigmatize mental illness through storytelling

fiza’s word vomit

A candid newsletter: my brain on writing and reading and the beautiful mess of word work