Our Story
Words In Motion began in 2019 in the Maughan Library at King's College London. What started as a blog then a page sharing book reviews and literary reflections on Arab voices and the broader SWANA world would grow into something far larger.
Six years later, Words In Motion is a community of over 9,000 people across more than 60 countries, which includes a book club, workshops, a cultural platform, and a creative agency. It has evolved from a space for sharing stories into a space for producing them: events and experiences that bring the cultural heritage of the Arab and SWANA world into genuine dialogue with the world, and an editorial platform that cultivates reflection on culture, identity, and the ideas that shape how we understand the world.
The Studio arm brings that same cultural depth into the professional world, helping brands, institutions, and organisations create events, campaigns, and experiences that are culturally resonant, not just culturally adjacent.
What has never changed is the original impulse: to amplify the voices that deserve to be heard, to believe in the power of stories to change the world, and to build curious communities that continue to shape our shared heritage.
Meet the Founder
Aïcha El Alaoui is a curator, cultural producer, and creative strategist working at the intersection of culture, community, and creative dialogue.
She founded Words in Motion from a love of stories and a belief that the most meaningful experiences happen when people gather around them: in books, workshops, events and in the kind of spaces where culture becomes community.
Her work is rooted in the belief that culture is not a passive experience. It is a place where memory is held, identity is negotiated, and genuine exchange becomes possible. Everything Words in Motion produces begins from that conviction.
She holds an MSc in Middle Eastern and North African Studies from the University of Oxford and an MSc in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics. But her first credentials were always curiosity, a love of reading and writing, and an unshakeable belief in the power of stories to transform our lives.
Aïcha means 'alive' in Arabic and it is exactly how she feels when creating spaces where people, literature, and the arts come into dialogue with one another.