When people ask me about myself, my instinctive response is usually, “I was born a writer.” I think when you are an artist of any sort, the technical training and skills set are secondary to an innate compulsion to reveal the secrets divulged to you by a higher power. My recognition of these whispered signs came at an early age, but the intimidation of putting pen to paper has been a journey that reached its apex when I turned a new decade (and proverbial new chapter) of my life. In setting my intentions for personal and societal purpose within the context of Islam, two factors have remained at the forefront: storytelling, the interchange of human truths, and social justice, the restoration of underrepresented truths to the status quo. The result has been a refreshing entanglement of creative and corporate advocacy informed by a strong theoretical background in literature, graduate research on rhetoric and communication design, and a post-graduate dabble in children's media.
Born in Pakistan, raised in the United States, educated in Canada and having begun my career in South and Central Asia, I consider myself a global citizen that identifies with the liminal space somewhere in between the East and West. From this space emanates my inspiration to write on themes that transcend geographies and speak to the universality of our being.
