If you’re a writer of any kind - either in theory or one with dusty, completed manuscripts in your drawer - then this is your time to shine.

For UAE residents, there’s a one-of-a-kind writer’s fellowship that quite simply changed my life. I am on the road to getting published. The fellowship restored my broken confidence after years of rejections.

Applications open Oct 11 and here’s all you need to know to apply: https://www.elfdubai.org/en/first-chapter-writers-fellowship

What you get:

• Famous writer as a mentor

• Trip to NYC or the UK for a writing workshop

• Community of writers to uplift you and commiserate with

• Ten year Golden Visa to live in the UAE and… write!

Perhaps the best outcome for me was that I went from being someone who “wrote stuff sometimes” to the ability to identify as a writer. And I made incredible friends, which is hard and necessary in your late thirties 🫠 

Writers, poets, novelists, dreamers - please consider submitting your work. It’s free!

I wasn’t going to write a newsletter at all this week because I genuinely feel so heavy hearted with the news, but I believe it’s more important than ever for us to share our stories. It’s the only way to process everything that’s going on, build empathy, and hope for a better world.

Happy writing!

Read: A Bit of Fantasy

I don’t read because it offers escapism - I read because I want to experience more of life, including different time periods and places.

That said, fantasy is not my genre at all, yet these books have consistently topped the charts. I may just have to come around to the idea of being a 40 year old who reads about dragons and kingdoms. Think Game of Thrones, but books. Yay or nay?

Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

This BookTok sensation has been one of the bestselling books of the last year. It features a huntress named Feyre who murders a faerie… I just can’t get into it, but ‘romantasy’ (romance + fantasy) is all the rage.

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

It takes place in a school for riding dragons. But it’s for adults. And it’s a huge, huge bestseller. I’m really trying.

Write: First (Few) Chapters

To apply to the world’s best writing fellowship, you need to submit the first 2,000 words of your incomplete novel.

Here are three tips for a killer opening:

1. Start with a Strong Hook:

   Begin with a captivating opening line that grabs the reader's attention immediately. This could be a surprising statement, an intriguing question, or a vivid description that sets the tone for the story.

2. Establish Character and Voice

   Introduce your main character early on and give readers a sense of their personality and voice. This helps create an emotional connection. Consider starting with a scene that showcases their traits or dilemmas.

3. Introduce Conflict or Tension

   Presenting a conflict or hinting at a problem early on can create suspense and compel readers to continue. Whether it's an internal struggle or an external challenge, establishing stakes from the beginning keeps readers invested in the outcome.

Inspire: Spotlight Q&A with Dr Shatha Almutawa, Director of Kutubna Cultural Center

**Kicking off an exciting new monthly series highlighting amazing achievers!**

Meet Dr. Shatha Almutawa: a poet, scholar, editor, translator, mother, and the founding director of Kutubna Cultural Center in Dubai, designed to make Arab and Khaleeji contributions to literature, the arts and scholarship more visible and accessible.  

Born to a Kuwaiti mother and an Emirati father, Almutawa grew up between Dubai and Kuwait. Her lecturing career took her to prestigious universities in the US, including Cornell and University of Chicago, before returning to the Middle East to create a new cultural hub.

We sit down with Dr Almutawa to hear about why our stories matter more than ever.

1. What surprised you about running a bookshop/cultural center?

The surprise that keeps delighting me day after day is how much little children love books. They get so excited to sit down and read for a long time. On the other hand, the surprise that keeps breaking my heart is how difficult it is to obtain Arabic books. Kutubna staff and I created many lists of Arabic books that we would like to carry in our bookshop, but we have not been able to reach many publishers we would like to build relationships with.

2. Top 3 book recommendations?

Abdallah Alnasser’s Qahwanameh (written in Arabic) about coffee—its history, its many different preparations, the endless possibilities of extracting different flavors from it.

Amira Bu Kadra’s young adult Arabic novel Al-taamoor. It’s set in late 1960s Dubai and Bahrain and gives a snapshot of a family’s life at the end of the UAE’s pearling days and the beginning of the oil industry in the Gulf.

Finally, I always recommend Mai Al-Nakib’s An Unlasting Home, originally written in English. It is a beautifully written novel about generations of Kuwaiti women and their ties to India. This is another book that is hard to put down.

3. Can you share an author or book from the Gulf that made an impression on you?

In August, Shahd Thani offered a poetry writing workshop at Kutubna called Connecting with Our Ancestors that sold out within a few hours of being announced.  The workshop was so powerful because Shahd has a beautiful soul. Shahd’s poetry has been published anthologies such as Dear Future Lover and Fields of Poetry.

4. If you could write a memoir, what would the title be?

The Bookseller of Nadd Al Hamar!

Browse: These Links

Random stuff happening while there is senseless loss of life:

• Javier Bardem on Palestinian rights during film festival acceptance speech

• Row on 45: What to expect at a 2 star Michelin restaurant

• Love is Blind, Habibi to premiere on Netflix in Oct

• Pilates vs weight lifting: which is better at building muscle?

• Palestinian journalist Bisan wins Emmy for hard news coverage

• Hundreds of thousands join queue for Coldplay tickets - including me:

  

  Yeah, it didn’t happen :D

Countdown to My Novel’s Publication Day:

Thanks for reading! See you next week!

With kindness,

Sara