For storytellers
Editorial Guide
All forms of story are welcome, and we will meet you wherever you are in the writing process.
Qisashome Editorial Guide
Qisashome begins with a simple conviction: lived experience is knowledge. It is human knowledge, carrying grief, dispossession from the land, and a resistance to forgetting through memory, which dominant narratives seek to erase, simplify, or turn into something consumable.
Therefore, Qisashome gathers stories to preserve them with all their emotions, details, and in their authentic and raw form.
Qisashome welcomes all forms of artistic and creative expression about the meanings of home and stories of belonging. But Qisashome does not speak only to artists or to those who consider themselves gifted writers. Qisashome wants to document the stories of the homes of anyone who wishes to do so, through creative writing tools.
To make this easier, Qisashome structures the documentation around three themes or moments:
- 01
The Before
The lived details of your life before political violence entered your home.
- 02
The Rupture
Describe the moments when violence changed these details.
- 03
The After
How did you change, and how did your understanding of home change after that moment?
This simple structure is what we document and preserve.
Our mission rests on a conviction in the importance of a human, bottom-up approach to documenting political violence and its consequences, not only for those who witnessed it, but for those who lived it and heard it, and for those in later generations who will inherit these memories. We resist the monopoly over who gets to write history, and we fight to document the details of life that become distorted when any form of political violence is enacted.
Personal memories find their power in collectivity. Once gathered, they become narratives, diverse in their stories and united in their grief and experience, and therefore cannot be ignored or replaced.
The basics
- 01
Own your story
You are the only one who knows it. That means you can tell it in whatever way that feels authentic to you.
- 02
Take your time
Qisashome does not follow the news cycle or political analysis. Our authenticity comes from the durability of human experience, not from political actuality, which shifts while people's lives remain.
- 03
Consider it a journaling exercise
There is no pressure to arrive with a finished story. Write as you would in a private notebook: freely, honestly, without performance. The shape will come later. We are here for that part.
- 04
Forget about word limit
One word can hold your whole story. A thousand words can too. Both belong here.
- 05
Our story facilitators are at the heart of the process
Story facilitators support storytellers in the writing of their stories, while preserving the storyteller's voice and agency. They help you shape your memory into a shareable narrative. You can approach them at any time to talk and ask for advice.
- 06
We know AI is offering the gift of writing to many
We welcome technological progress, but we are here for the human voice. Your writing does not need to be perfect. Qisashome asks that you do not use AI tools to draft or develop your story if it contains information that could put you or others at risk.
- 07
All forms of story are welcome
We will meet you wherever you are in the writing process.
Types of stories Qisashome publishes
Qisashome aims to document stories, whether through writing or art. Types of creative writing include, but are not limited to:
- Personal narratives
- Reflective essays
- Memory-based storytelling
- Poetry and poetic narratives
- Testimonies of lived experience
- Hybrid or experimental narrative forms
Qisashome Core Principles
- 01
Lived experience as knowledge
Qisashome treats personal narrative as a legitimate form of knowledge production. The stories held in this archive are not illustrations of events that happened elsewhere; they are accounts of what was lived from within, and they carry their own authority.
- 02
Authorial voice preservation
The editorial process exists to serve the story, not to reshape it. Every intervention made by a story facilitator or editor is in the direction of clarity, never at the cost of the contributor's voice, tone, or way of telling. The story that reaches the reader should sound like the person who lived it.
- 03
Consent is not a formality
No story is published without a signed consent form. The form covers the story and any media elements submitted with it. Consent is not static, can be revisited and changed at any point. A storyteller may withdraw at any time, without explanation. That right never expires.
- 04
Non-extractive storytelling
When a story facilitator takes part in the process, stories are developed in close collaboration with their authors, not extracted and reframed to serve external narratives or institutional agendas. The contributor remains at the center of the process, from the first conversation to the moment of publication.
- 05
Countering dominant narrative frameworks
Qisashome resists storytelling models that reduce individuals to their suffering. Every story published on this platform is an act of self-representation, and agency is present in the telling itself. To speak of one's own experience, in one's own words, is already an act of resistance.
Language and Style
- Stories may be submitted in Arabic or English.
- Stories typically range between 800–2,250 words, though we remain flexible. The length of a story should serve what needs to be told.
- The storyteller has signed the consent form before the story enters the editorial process.
- No rigid stylistic format is imposed.
- Editing focuses on clarity and coherence while preserving the author's voice.
Editorial Boundaries
Editorial fit is not only a question of craft. It is also a question of values. Qisashome does not publish
- stories that incites harm or violence,
- stories that exploit others without consent,
- stories that reinforces dehumanizing or discriminatory representations,
- stories that rehabilitate perpetrators or regimes,
- stories that normalize occupation or colonial violence,
- stories that reproduce sectarian or racist logic,
- stories that attribute criminal guilt without a final conviction.
These are not negotiable on the basis of literary merit, authorial reputation, or editorial pressure.