Coming Soon
Deep Listening in Precarious Times
A Personal Essay for the Wise Brain Bulletin. Essays on mental health awareness. Based on Immigration & Housing precarity
Catabasis
Published in a special anthology by the International Human Rights Art Movement Press titled: Hannah Arendt: An American Hero, Catabasis was written during a period of intense housing and immigration precarity in December 2025. I am deeply grateful that the piece was recognized by the jury as an “extraordinary” contribution and selected within the top 5% of submissions for this anthology. The collection reflects on Arendt’s ideas—from the banality of evil and moral responsibility to communal solidarity—and how they continue to reverberate across the world today.
Coming Soon
A December Sigh
Written during a period of intense immigration and housing precarity, this essay emerged from a time when deep listening became less of a practice and more of a necessity.
“Deep listening becomes necessary when you are under strain—when the systems that tell you where to go, how to move, and when to arrive stop making sense.”
The essay reflects on the uncertainty that grips the nervous system when systems fail us, sending us into a state of perpetual precarity.
An encounter with the Elbow River in Mohkinstsis while navigating my fifth Canadian immigration application after 17 years in Canada.
A Room of My Own
SUSPECT Journal championing voices of the Asian diaspora by Singapore Unbound based on immigration and housing precarity.
Forthcoming. 2027
Coming Soon
When Life Puffs Diesel Fumes…
A mental health blog entry for To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) based on immigration precarity
Swells in the Ocean
A blog post for Canadian Association for Sound Ecology’s Pandemic Diaries
A reflective essay in which Shumaila Hemani traces the acoustic shifts of life aboard the MV World Odyssey during COVID-19, contrasting the ocean’s swells with pandemic waves and listening as survival and adaptation.
Archived
Perils of Heavy Rainfall
Perils of Heavy Rainfall: Displacement and Resettlement Driven by Floods” — The Goose, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2022) — This essay explores the deepening impact of climate-driven flooding in Sindh, Pakistan, through the lens of monsoon traditions, field-recorded soundscapes, and her own experience of displacement during Covid-19.
Blog Posts
Commission Writing for your Magazine/Journal
Editors and publications are welcome to commission Dr. Hemani for essays, short stories, and poetry on human rights, artistic freedom, migration, sound, and systems change.
