Book Launch: Sing Me a Circle by Samina Najmi

Judging by the Cover: A Bookstore is proud to host the official launch of Sing Me a Circle: Love, Loss, and a Home in Time, the highly anticipated debut essay collection by Fresno State Professor Samina Najmi.

This special evening will feature opening readings by several of Najmi’s distinguished former students and colleagues—writers who are shaping Fresno and the Central Valley’s vibrant literary landscape—followed by a reading, signing, and Q&A with the author herself.

Join us as we celebrate a landmark debut, community voices, and the powerful role literature plays in telling our stories.
About the Book

Published by Trio House Press, Sing Me a Circle (ISBN: 9781949487480, $24.99) has already earned national recognition:

• Starred review in Publishers Weekly
• Named one of Poets & Writers’ Best Debut Nonfiction Books of 2025
• Winner of the 2024 Aurora Polaris Prize

Spanning Pakistan, England, and the United States, Najmi intertwines family histories of displacement with themes of love, grief, and belonging. Praised as “a balm for our time” (Janice Lee) and “an achingly beautiful story of regenerating roots” (Shadab Zeest Hashmi), this collection is a landmark contribution to South Asian diasporic and post-Partition literature.

Samina Najmi is Professor of English at California State University, Fresno, where she teaches multiethnic U.S. literature and creative writing. Her essays have appeared in World Literature Today, The Rumpus, Entropy, The Massachusetts Review, and more. A Hedgebrook alumna and prize-winning essayist, Najmi has lived in Fresno since 2006, raising her family and cultivating her literary practice in the Central Valley.

Host or Publisher Judging by the Cover: A Bookstore