HI! I’m Fiza Pirani, an independent journalist, writer, editor, and community organizer 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 I serve as Digital Audience Manager for 285 South, Atlanta’s only English-language newsroom dedicated to our metro’s diverse immigrant communities. Outside of work, I operate 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 writer for the Atlanta newspaper.

When I’m not writing, editing or reading, I’m organizing with community of conscience to reimagine and help build the world we deserve. Also, if I get a moment to breathe, I like to catch the trails with my dog or dabble in watercolors. 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