It’s the dog days of summer and it’s hard to get enthusiastic about much! Had a long talk with an editor on what’s working and not working with some sample chapters I sent her. It was funny. As I’m talking to her and she’s confirming all of my worst fears about the piece, there’s part […]

I simply love hearing and learning about other artists’ and authors’ creative process! When Christiane contacted me after she’d finished the artwork for my new book King for a Day, I called her up and we talked on the phone and as we were talking I thought, hey, this would make a fantastic blog post or page on my […]

One of the most depressing thing you can do is go to the comments section of any article about something happening in a Muslim country. Now I get that the internet offers a modicum of anonymity that isn’t available in everyday life and that very very few people would actually utter these racist horrible remarks […]

Went up to Newmarket this morning for a presentation sponsored by Weaving Words festival. Weaving Words is storytelling festival taking place just north of Toronto on Sept. 29th. Free to all! And they invited me! Well to promote it, they asked me to do a storytelling session at the Newmarket Public Library! Newmarket is a […]

Last night I stayed up and read Quran, trying, trying to reach my goal of finishing the English translation in the month of Ramadan. I have part of today and tomorrow left to read 12 out of 30 sections. I’m not sure if I’ll make it, but somehow it doesn’t seem to matter, because last […]

Went to taraweeh prayers tonight by myself. Felt weird! I was SO tempted to just stay home because it was raining, but I had to go out anyway to pick up my son from work and it just meant dropping him home and taking off for the masjid. I made my little rain dua. It […]