Are you struggling with the timeline of the publishing process? Are you curious about staying organized as a writer? How do you keep track of each character’s storyline and remain consistent? Get ready for this motivating conversation featuring today’s special guest Aisha Saeed.
Aisha is a New York Times bestselling author. She wrote WRITTEN IN THE STARS which was listed as a best book of 2015 by Bank Street Books and a 2016 YALSA Quick Pick For Reluctant Readers. She is also the author of the middle-grade novel AMAL UNBOUND a Summer 2018 Indie Next Pick, An Amazon Best Book of the Month, has received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus and is a Global Read Aloud for 2018.
Aisha’s experiences are hands-down motivating, from finding which literary agents to contact through a local bookshop, to switching her mindset to approach literary agents confidently, to finally hearing a “yes” after the 30th submission for publication, and so much more.
Check out these highlights:
- How Aisha thought of the idea for her debut novel during college and developed the core of her story while studying for the bar exam and eventually during her time as a working as a lawyer
- How NaNoWriMo helped Aisha to fully complete her story
- Find out the advice that Aisha’s friend gave her to give her the mindset to muster up the courage to submit to agents
- Aisha shares her journey of going through 29 no’s during submission to get published for “Written in the Stars”
- We walk through Aisha’s process of researching which literary agent to contact by going to a local bookstore
- We discuss how she discovered how to write a query letter
- We’re given a snapshot of Aisha’s newest novel, “Amal Unbound”, and the inspiration behind the story
- We discover how she keeps organized as a writer
- How to keep track of each character and keep them consistent by creating multiple layers of foundation
- Hear how Aisha’s revision process was like
- Shifting our mindset to trust the timing and process of the publication timeline
- Listener question featured:
- How does she go about writing difficult scenes with the utmost care?
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“Be patient with yourself, be gentle with the process. Let the process take as long as it needs to.”
-Aisha Saeed
“If you feel a lack of confidence, that’s just part of this. You don’t learn to overcome it, you just learn how to live with it and you learn to understand that it’s normal. And you just keep going.”
-Aisha Saeed
Learn More About “Amal Unbound”
“Saeed’s timely and stirring middle-grade debut is a celebration of resistance and justice.”–Kirkus Reviews, starred review
The compelling story of a girl’s fight to regain her life and dreams after being forced into indentured servitude.
Life is quiet and ordinary in Amal’s Pakistani village, but she had no complaints, and besides, she’s busy pursuing her dream of becoming a teacher one day. Her dreams are temporarily dashed when–as the eldest daughter–she must stay home from school to take care of her siblings. Amal is upset, but she doesn’t lose hope and finds ways to continue learning. Then the unimaginable happens–after an accidental run-in with the son of her village’s corrupt landlord, Amal must work as his family’s servant to pay off her own family’s debt.
Life at the opulent Khan estate is full of heartbreak and struggle for Amal–especially when she inadvertently makes an enemy of a girl named Nabila. Most troubling, though, is Amal’s growing awareness of the Khans’ nefarious dealings. When it becomes clear just how far they will go to protect their interests, Amal realizes she will have to find a way to work with others if they are ever to exact change in a cruel status quo, and if Amal is ever to achieve her dreams.
Learn More About Aisha Saeed
Aisha Saeed is a New York Times bestselling author. She wrote WRITTEN IN THE STARS (Penguin/Nancy Paulsen Books, 2015) which was listed as a best book of 2015 by Bank Street Books and a 2016 YALSA Quick Pick For Reluctant Readers. She is also the author of the middle grade novel AMAL UNBOUND (Penguin/Nancy Paulsen Books, 2018) a Summer 2018 Indie Next Pick, An Amazon Best Book of the Month, has received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus and is a Global Read Aloud for 2018. She also has a forthcoming picture book BILAL COOKS DAAL (Simon & Schuster/Salaam Reads, 2019). Aisha is also a founding member of the nonprofit We Need Diverse Books™. She has been featured on MTV, the Huffington Post, NBC, and the BBC, and her writings have appeared in publications including the journal ALAN and the Orlando Sentinel.
Aisha is represented by Taylor Martindale at Full Circle Literary Agency and lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three sons.
