Join us in celebrating the release of not one, but two new books by Boulder poet and author, Moudi Sbeity. Moudi is the author of the poetry collection, Alhamdulillah Anyway and the memoir, Habibi Means Beloved.

About the Author:

Moudi Sbeity is a Lebanese-American poet, author, and contemplative educator. Born in Texas and raised in Lebanon, he moved to the United States at the age of eighteen as an evacuee following the 2006 July war. In Utah, Moudi founded and operated Laziz Kitchen, a Lebanese restaurant celebrated by the New York Times as "the future of queer dining." Moudi was also a named plaintiff in Kitchen v. Herbert, the landmark case that brought marriage equality to Utah and the 10th circuit states in 2014. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Orison's Best Spiritual Literature. As a lifelong stutterer, he is passionate about writing and poetry as practices in fluency and self-expression.

About Alhamdulillah Anyway:

How totally must a heart break so that gratitude is repeatedly uttered on our lips? In Alhamdulillah Anyway, Moudi Sbeity responds by holding the grief of witnessing the genocide in Gaza and the war in Lebanon alongside praise for existing at all. As a queer muslim who stutters, Sbeity’s debut collection intimately addresses how language and narrative author our collective experience. His poems reach across the divide of border and ideology and into the shared pulse of being, pointing toward the possibility of liberation through a framework of compassion, forgiveness, and awe. So that even with all the difficulties we each face daily, even with all the atrocities of our world, still alhamdulillah– the quieter sister to hallelujah– can be uttered as our final song of gratitude.

About Habibi Means Beloved: A Queer Memoir on War, Stuttering, and Belonging:

Born into a Muslim family from a small Lebanese village, Moudi Sbeity came of age at the intersection of war, displacement, and difference. Queer, with a stutter, and often on the margins of belonging, Sbeity survived the conflicts that fractured their homeland and family before arriving in Utah as an eighteen-year-old evacuee.

From there, Sbeity transformed anonymity into advocacy as plaintiff in Kitchen v. Herbert, the landmark case that secured marriage equality across the 10th Circuit, and as founder of the celebrated Salt Lake City queer-friendly restaurant Laziz Kitchen. Yet behind these outward triumphs, Sbeity felt an inner call to return to their roots through writing and poetry. Habibi Means Beloved interweaves personal narrative, Sufi mysticism, and Lebanese heritage in a memoir of resilience, disconnection, and reconciliation. Both intimate and universal, it invites readers to reimagine belonging and recognize ourselves—and one another—as already beloved.