American Muslim fiction is a burgeoning space that is little known except to those who are directly engaged in study of the field or who actively seek out writing in this category. The first purpose of this talk will be to draw the contours of the growing field of American Muslim fiction, with a focus on novels. Muslim American novelists are publishing in nearly all genres, including historical fiction, contemporary fiction, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and romance. A number of these works have achieved critical acclaim. I seek to describe this literature’s size, its variety in terms of genres, subject matter, and literary quality, and to suggest a periodization for this literature. I will survey authorship in this category, in terms of countries and cultures of origin, gender, professional affiliation, age/generation, race, among other features. The overall thrust of this segment of the talk will be to present a survey of the publishing landscape of Muslim-authored novels in the U.S., to indicate salient trends, and to raise complicating questions about delineating Muslim American fiction. Some of these salient trends are the high ratio of female writers to male writers, the relationship between race and self-publication, and the prevalence of queer authorship. Some complicating questions have to do with defining the categories of “American” and “Muslim,” and with identifying the boundary between fantasy and realism in religiously framed fiction. Beyond describing these external characteristics of Muslim American fiction, this talk will examine some of the prominent themes and topics taken up in these novels, with special attention to their exploration of Islamic religious elements such as cosmology, morality, spirituality, ritual, and scripture. While not all Muslim American fictionists take up matters of religion, many do. I will explore some of the ways that these works engage with elements of Islam. My overarching argument is that Muslim American fiction writers are forging new ways of being Muslim, and through their creative work in matters of religion, are contributing to the shape of Islam itself.