Walk through Detroit long enough and the city starts talking to you — in murals, in corner bars, in the way old streets bend and break. 

A new puzzle collection tries to put that experience on the page.

On Saturday night, people who love this city enough to puzzle over it will gather at The Congregation in Detroit for the release of the new crossword book Block Party: Detroit Edition.

There are many things in Detroit to be surprised by — a block you thought you knew. A memory stirred by the sound of a bus rolling by. A building with an unexplored hallway.

This new crossword book leans into all of that. Every puzzle carries a bit of the city.

At the center of it all are two friends: Sala Wanetick and Emily Biegas. They write with curiosity, tease with wordplay, and hide little nods to the places they grew up and the corners they still wander. Their clues feel like conversations at a bar you’ve been going to for years.

They joined Cary Junior II on The Metro to discuss how a crossword becomes a portrait of a place, and why Detroit is perfect for this kind of puzzle.

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Metro Detroit is home to one of the largest Iraqi communities outside the Middle East. Muslims and Chaldeans share streets, shops, and schools here. Together, they hold stories of displacement, of wars fought by the United States on their homeland, even as that same nation became their place of safety. Yet that closeness is cleaved by sharp differences, especially at the ballot box. 

Many Chaldeans, rooted in Catholic tradition and conservative values, have leaned Republican. Muslim Americans, once loyal Democrats, broke away in 2024, frustrated that the Biden administration did not stop the devastation in Gaza. Many instead voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

These political choices are layered with questions of identity, family, and faith. They are the backdrop of Pomegranate, a film written and directed by Iraqi American author Weam Namou.

The story unfolds during the 2016 election. It follows Niran, a young Muslim refugee who finds herself in a conservative Chaldean Christian neighborhood. Through her eyes, we see the push and pull of trying to belong amid the stereotypes Middle Eastern women face in America.

Namou has spent her career writing about these themes. She has given voice to Iraqi women’s experiences of migration, resilience, and faith. “Pomegranate” carries that work forward. Although the film is set years ago, its questions still feel urgent: How do communities live together when politics and religion pull them apart? How do women escape the boxes sharply drawn out for them?

Namou joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss belonging in America today.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

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