Roukia Ali

Name and position: Roukia Ali (she/her) - Second-in-Command/Head of Staff

What compelled you to join IBR?: I met Mia during my earliest days in the literary magazine community, when we both submitted to The Elysian Chronicles' "Metamorphosis" issue. My work in the issue caught her attention, and so she found my Instagram and we started texting casually, quickly becoming good friends. Eventually, Mia was interested in starting her own magazine and expressed this idea to me in a text, along with an invitation to be her second. I had worked for magazines before and was interested in making it a serious commitment alongside someone just as ambitious as me, so here I am, and I couldn't be happier!

Favorite melancholic media: 

• Favorite Book - I love Osamu Dazai's "No Longer Human"! I think it's a different kind of melancholy when a book numbs you so much with its themes you can't even cry

• Favorite music - Mitski's "I Bet On Losing Dogs" and Current Joys' "New Flesh"

• Favorite video games - I love the Resident Evil games! Lots of great, dark themes. 4 is my favourite, I could yap about it forever

• Favorite Movie - "Drive My Car" is a movie everyone needs to watch before the heat death of the universe

Where can we find your best published work?:

• Poems - Scarborough Fair Issue 53, Sontag Magazine Issue 1, WordsWithWeight Summer 2024 issue, DreamWorldGirl Magazine Issue 2

• Prose - Clementine Magazine Issue 2, Rewrite The Stars Issue 8, The Infinite Blues Review Issue 2, Aster Lit Issue 11

Social media handles:

• Instagram - @roukiaa9140

• LinkedIn - if you can find me on LinkedIn with "Roukia Ali", you can see all my publications; prose is my main form