I always used to wonder why God seemed to put so much emphasis in the Quran on sending a messenger to a people from among their own people. It’s repeated over and over again. I thought, what’s the big deal if an outsider were to come and point out what they were doing wrong? After […]

There’s a line in Patricia McCormick’s book Sold where the mother says any man is better than none. It’s an interesting line because there are indeed some women who feel that way. In fact in writing Wanting Mor, I thought the stepmother was a bit like that too. But actually my stepmother is much more […]

It was a National Book Award finalist but it’s written in free verse! Gosh I hate free verse novels. They feel like the writer cheated. They’res kind of artsy fartsy. I think the first one I read was Kiss the Dust. It was good but I think the format is annoying. I mean why couldn’t […]

Just finished reading it, even though my head’s all plugged up and my eyes are watering. First of all, the good stuff: it’s kind of well written. A bit wooden, but not bad. I thought some of the imagery, her wanting to fly away like the bird Abdo was a bit nice. There seem to […]

Got two chapters revised today when I thought I’d only, at most, get one. But somehow, after I finished putting this chapter into the eyes of the other character, I still had some stamina left, and I got started in on the next. It wasn’t that hard. Just really changing tenses, first person present into third […]

Sometimes, when I dwell on it, I can’t help cringing about the way I behaved when I was first starting out. And sometimes, when I’m feeling generous, I don’t even blame that instructor for asking me to leave that writing workshop I’d paid to join. I made all the typical newbie mistakes. Probably every single […]

It’s funny how different connections come up in life. I’m getting to the end of REBECCA by Daphne Du Maurier and I came across an oblique reference to Singapore. It’s when Colonel Julyan, the inspector in charge of the inquest into the death of Rebecca, is sitting down to lunch at Manderley. The servants are […]

On Tuesday March 9th, I’m going to be interviewed on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) Radio by Shelagh Rogers. Yesterday a gentleman called me up for a kind of pre-interview and he asked me this question: “Why YA?” He was referring to Wanting Mor, my novel that is based on a true story and set in post-Taliban […]

twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your live to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: This stanza of the poem If by Rudyard Kipling, always reminds me of the Prophet (peace be upon him) Sometimes I wonder what he would say if […]

I subscribe to an email newsletter from a group called CAIR which stands for Council on American Islamic Relations. They’re a Muslim advocacy group and they field all kinds of issues that arise with regards to problems Muslims face in America. Most of them have to do with women who are fired for wearing the […]