About The Author

I grew up in Saudi Arabia and left at thirteen for boarding school in Switzerland. University carried me farther, first to Paris and then to New York, where I studied Comparative Literature at Mercy University and earned my MFA from Manhattanville University in 2022. Between degrees I taught in Cairo and in Saudi Arabia.

Growing up across these countries gave me close friendships I still hold today, and a deep affection for the stories people told to ward off homesickness. That is where my writing comes from: the lives and voices I have been lucky enough to know. I also love to paint and write poetry, and I live between New York and Saudi Arabia with my family and my two very spoiled cats, Luna and Kookie.

My work appears in Elephant Journal, and I publish short stories and essays on Substack and Medium. The Rosewater Bookstore is my first novel. It is set in Madinah in 1973, where a sixteen-year-old girl fights to inherit her late father's bookstore.