Podcasts about Uzma Jalaluddin

Uzma Jalaluddin is a critically acclaimed and bestselling novelist, playwright, public speaker and teacher. She writes authentic, nuanced and entertaining stories about Muslims, South Asians, and Canadians and is the author of DETECTIVE AUNTY, MUCH ADO ABOUT NADA, THREE HOLIDAYS AND A WEDDING, HANA KHAN CARRIES ON, and AYESHA AT LAST, as well as her first play, THE RISHTA. Her novels have been optioned for film and television by Amazon Studios and Mindy Kaling. In today's episode, Annmarie welcomes Uzma back to talk about how to write a mystery, how to revise a book, and how to walk in the direction of your wildest dreams. Episode Sponsors: Another Story Bookshop – Located in the West end of Toronto, Another Story Bookshop sells a broad range of literature for children, young adults, and adults with a focus on themes of social justice, equity, and diversity. We are a proudly independent bookstore with 30 years of history and a commitment to providing quality customer service. Stop by or shop online at anotherstory.ca. Blue Heron Books – The unpretentious atmosphere of Blue Heron with its comfy chairs, wood shelving, and creaky floors lends itself to long, slow, browsing sessions. However, under that sleepy atmosphere vibrates a strong pulse. In its storied, thirty-plus-year history, Blue Heron Books has played host to and continues to showcase a veritable who's who of the world's literary community. Two-time winner of The Libris Award (Best Bookstore in Canada), Blue Heron is a hub for the community and a bastion of friendly chaos where everyone is welcome. Stop by or shop online at blueheronbooks.com. Books by Uzma Jalaluddin: DETECTIVE AUNTY MUCH ADO ABOUT NADA THREE HOLIDAYS AND A WEDDING, co-authored with Marissa Stapley HANA KHAN CARRIES ON AYESHA AT LAST Other Titles Mentioned in This Episode: Blood Betrayal, by Ausma Zehanat Khan  The Unquiet Dead, by Ausma Zehanat Khan Here's a trailer for The Good Place. Follow Uzma Jalauddin: Instagram: @uzmajalaluddin Twitter: @UzmaWrites Facebook: @UzmaJalaluddinAuthor Substack: @uzmajalaluddin uzmajalaluddin.com **Writing Workshops and Wish Fulfillment:  If you liked this conversation and are interested in writing abroad, consider joining Annmarie and co-leader Athena Dixon for a writing retreat in Italy in September, 2025. You can travel to a beautiful place, meet other wise women, and write your own stories. We'd love to help you make your wishes come true.  This will sell out. Act now and join us! Or for women interested in an online Saturday morning writing circle, you can sign up here or message Annmarie to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bestselling romance writer Uzma Jalaluddin is switching gears. Her new novel, “Detective Aunty,” is a murder mystery, set in a fictional neighbourhood in Scarborough, Ont. Uzma joins Tom Power to talk about the overlap between writing a romance and a “cozy” murder mystery, how writing about love is similar to writing about murder, and why she always wanted to write a mystery.

The Cape Breton author and illustrator shares what books have been the most influential to in her life as a person and creative; Angel Misri and Sam Wiebe join the mystery panel to give their recommendations; how Flara K finds songwriting inspiration in novels; and the romance writer who runs a cake shop on this episode of The Next Chapter.Books discussed on this week's show include:Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate BeatonThe Making of the English Working Class by E.P. ThompsonThe Lost Salt Gift of Blood by Alistair MacLeod1066 And All That by R.J. Yeatman and W.C. SellarAnne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud MontgomeryBluenose Ghosts by Helen CreightonThe Seven Year Slip by Ashley PostonContemplation of a Crime by Susan JubyDetective Aunty by Uzma JalaluddinThe Silent Film Star Murders by Melodie CampbellBeen Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right by Walter MosleyFair Play by Louise HegartDirty Little War by Dietrich KalteisSay You'll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez

Worlds collide in the latest BOOKSPO, in which Uzma Jalaluddin contemplates her pivot from romance writing to crime fiction. Or was it actually a pivot after all? It turns out that Jalaluddin's history with crime fiction goes way back, to her own voracious reading as a teen, and even further—to her grandfather's library in India, which included the novels of Agatha Christie. How did one of Christie's best known works, THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD, inspire DETECTIVE AUNTY, set admidst a Muslim community in modern day Toronto? How was Jalaluddin inspired by her mother's generation to give a unique twist to her Miss Marple-like character? And how is a mystery novel structured like an inside-out romance (which poses quite the challenge for the writer moving from one genre to the other?). Listen to find out! Pickle Me This is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.When her grown daughter is suspected of murder, a charming and tenacious widow digs into the case to unmask the real killer in this twisty, page-turning whodunit—the first book in a cozy new detective series from the acclaimed author of Ayesha at LastAfter her husband's unexpected death twelve months earlier, Kausar Khan never thought she'd receive another phone call as heartbreaking—until her thirty-something daughter, Sana, phones to say she's been arrested for killing the unpopular landlord of her clothing boutique. Determined to help her child, Kausar heads to Toronto for the first time in nearly twenty years.Returning to the Golden Crescent suburb where she raised her children and where her daughter still lives, Kausar finds that the thriving neighborhood she remembers has changed. The murder of Sana's landlord is only the latest in a wave of local crimes that have gone unsolved.And the facts of the case are troubling: Sana found the man dead in her shop at a suspiciously early hour, with a dagger from her windowfront display plunged into his chest. But Kausar—a woman with a keen sense of observation and deep wisdom honed by life experience—senses there's more to the story than her daughter is sharing.With the help of some old friends and her plucky teenage granddaughter, Kausar digs into the investigation to uncover the truth. Because who better to pry answers from unwilling suspects than a meddlesome aunty? But even Kausar could not have predicted the secrets, lies, and betrayals she finds along the way . . .Uzma Jalaluddin is a critically acclaimed and bestselling novelist, playwright, and teacher. She writes nuanced and entertaining stories about Muslims, South Asians, and Canadians and is the author of Much Ado About Nada, Three Holidays and a Wedding, Hana Khan Carries On, and Ayesha At Last. as well as her first play, The Rishta. Her novels have been optioned for film and television, including by Amazon Studios and Mindy Kaling. A high school English teacher, Jalaluddin is also a former contributor to the Toronto Star and the Atlantic. She lives near Toronto with her family. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kerryreads.substack.com/subscribe

On this episode of Currently Reading, Kaytee and Roxanna are discussing: Bookish Moments: shifts in our reading and brain farts Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we've been reading lately Deep Dive: reading Canadian elbows up style The Fountain: we visit our perfect fountain to make wishes about our reading lives Show notes are time-stamped below for your convenience. Read the transcript of the episode (this link only works on the main site) .  .  .  .  1:55 - Ad For Ourselves 2:01 - Currently Reading Patreon 7:03 - Our Bookish Moments Of The Week 7:25 - CR Season 7: Episode 24 12:21 - CR Season 7: Episode 36 12:26 - Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri 12:51 - Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope 14:18 - Our Current Reads 14:24 - Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (Roxanna) 18:57 - Coven by Soman Chainani (Kaytee) 19:10 - The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani 23:32 - The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe (Roxanna) 28:55 - The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight (Kaytee) 29:17 - Fabled Bookshop 33:28 - Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt 34:03 - The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday by Saad Z. Hossain (Roxanna) 38:26 - Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell (Kayee) 38:40 - Schuler Books 44:56 - Reading Canadian 48:48 - Canada Reads 48:51 - The Giller Prize 49:21 - The Push by Ashley Audrain 50:06 - Room by Emma Donoghue 50:18 - The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue 50:29 - The Lotterys Plus One by Emma Donoghue 52:01 - The Fabulous Zed Watson! by Basil Sylvester 53:18 - Women Talking by Miriam Toews  55:00 - Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley 55:08 - Finding Me by Viola Davis 55:57 - Washington Black by Esi Edugyan 56:49 - Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalaluddin 56:53 - Three Holidays and A Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley 57:02 - Much Ado About Nada Uzma Jalaluddin 57:32 - Five Little Indians by Michelle Good 1:02:20 - The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan 1:03:40 - Lucky by Marissa Stapley 1:06:24 - Meet Us At The Fountain 1:07:05 - I wish there was an easier way to export and download kindle notes and highlights. (Roxanna) 1:08:57 - I wish to press Happy Place by Emily Henry. (Kaytee) 1:09:00 - Happy Place by Emily Henry   Support Us: Become a Bookish Friend | Grab Some Merch Shop Bookshop dot org | Shop Amazon Bookish Friends Receive: The Indie Press List with a curated list of five books hand sold by the indie of the month. May's IPL is a new indie to the rotation - Dog Eared Books in Ames, Iowa. Love and Chili Peppers with Kaytee and Rebekah - romance lovers get their due with this special episode focused entirely on the best selling genre fiction in the business.  All Things Murderful with Meredith and Elizabeth - special content for the scary-lovers, brought to you with the behind-the-scenes insights of an independent bookseller From the Editor's Desk with Kaytee and Bunmi Ishola - a quarterly peek behind the curtain at the publishing industry The Bookish Friends Facebook Group - where you can build community with bookish friends from around the globe as well as our hosts Connect With Us: The Show: Instagram | Website | Email | Threads The Hosts and Regulars: Meredith | Kaytee | Mary | Roxanna Production and Editing: Megan Phouthavong Evans Affiliate Disclosure: All affiliate links go to Bookshop unless otherwise noted. Shopping here helps keep the lights on and benefits indie bookstores. Thanks for your support!

An emergency landing during a flight to Toronto has a group of strangers, including an entire bridal party, snowbound at the quirky Snow Falls Inn in a picture-perfect town. As romances unfold and movies are filmed, they soon realize there's no place they'd rather be for the holidays. We review this fun, cozy Holiday read with Aamer Khan.

In this episode Raise Your Words Host Amani sits down with author Uzma Jalaluddin to chat about her books Much Ado About Nada, Ayesha at Last, & Hana Khan Carries On. Uzma also talks about being a teacher and teases an upcoming project. Uzma is one of Amani's favorite Muslim romance authors.

Episode 133 February 1, 2024   BIG thanks to Sally, Sonia, Nathan, & Meghan for episode 132! On the Needles 2:15 ALL KNITTING LINKS GO TO RAVELRY UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.  Please visit our Instagram page @craftcookreadrepeat for non-Rav photos and info     Roam by Dawn Barker, Rainbow Peak Yarns super sock in Luminosity II (Lula Faye Fibre)   Ilha by Orlane Sucche, SugarPlum Circus sock in Scorpio   ADVENTuresome Wrap by Ambah O'Brien, Canon Hand Dyes Victorian Gothic Advent set   Weather or Knot Scarf by Scott Rohr , HolstGarn Coast in Butterfly, Black, Charcoal, Silver Grey, Wisteria, Freesia, Passion Flower   OMG heel socks by Megan Williams, Schachenmayr Regia Pairfect Nordland in 6819 On the Easel 15:47 Field Guides series Quarter 1 project Nate's BIG painting, lessons learned? On the Table 21:03   Smitten Kitchen Seattle Lecture series She and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt have podcast coming soon!   roasted squash and tofu with ginger – smitten kitchen Served with baby bok/cabbage salad with mustard vinaigrette (DALS winter salads)   Ginger-scallion broccoli soup from ali slagle/40 ingredients forever   Spiced tomato soup with horseradish cream from San Francisco Chronicle https://tasty.co/recipe/slow-cooker-coconut-curry   Ice cream cake   Chocolate Cherry Macaroons - by Susan Spungen   Red Salad (raw purple cabbage, raw beets, red onion, with capers & creme fraiche) Soft Pretzels from Sally's Baking Addiction (& them made temple lunch sandwiches with them!) Protein Mac & Cheese (needs tweaks; I'll report back soon) On the Nightstand 33:17 We are now a Bookshop.org affiliate!  You can visit our shop to find books we've talked about or click on the links below.  The books are supplied by local independent bookstores and a percentage goes to us at no cost to you!   Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley  The Christmas Orphans Club by Becca Freeman  The Good Part by Sophie Cousens  Improbable Meet Cute series from Amazon Prime  A Power Unbound (the last binding #3) by Freya Marske The Innocent Sleep by Seanan McGuire  The Narrow Road Between Desires by Patrick Rothfuss Mammoths at the Gates by Nigh Vo The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera   Day by Michael Cunningham  On Beauty by Zadie Smith    The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

Summary: Let's get meta, friends! Today, Holly and Devin talk through books with podcasters as the protagonists. They use this podcast medium to dig into the value of podcasting and the way that an audio medium impacts our lives, for better and for much, much worse. Due to its growing popularity in the last decade - true crime for Holly and comedy/science for Devin - podcasts are more and more featured in books and as podcasters themselves, our hosts are all for it. They'll stop saying “podcast” so much now… Topics Discussed: The Dagger (3:20): Holly discussed None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell, a psychological thriller that follows popular podcaster Alix Summers as she crosses paths with an unassuming woman named Josie Fair. After Josie pitches herself as the subject in one of Alix's podcast episodes, the women become progressively more entwined and Alix is left to uncover the dark, terrible legacy of Josie after her sudden disappearance. Holly's key takeaways were: Jewell alternates the POV between Alix and Josie and includes excerpts from the podcast episodes they record; Holly recommends this book on audio specifically because of the mixed media elements.  From the start, Alix and Josie are foils for each other. Alix is pretty, upper middle class, successful and fulfilled in her work. Josie is frumpy, constantly described as wearing denim everything and married to a man almost 30 years her senior. Jewell weaves them together in a fascinating and terrifying way.  As the title indicates, Jewell masterfully balances perspective (via Alix, who is uncertain about who Josie is and whether to keep working with her) such that the reader even to the end cannot feel confident in who to believe and where lies the truth.  The Heart (20:22): Devin discussed Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin, a “You've Got Mail” retelling that follows Hana Khan as she balances her passion for podcasting with her efforts to save her mother's halal restaurant, Three Sisters Biryani Poutine. When a competitor, Wholistic Burgers and Grill, opens on the same street, Hana is thrown into battle against the charming and gorgeous Aydin Shah. With her podcast, Ana's Brown Girl Rambles, as a solace and the dedicated listener Stanley P as a confidant, how can Hana do it all? Devin's key takeaways were: Instead of email for this Rom Com re-do, Aydin and Hana come together and are kept apart by her podcast and their DMs. Her engagement with audio allows the reader to explore what having a voice means, especially with moments of anti-muslim hate crime in the story.  Yes, this is a romance but Jalaluddin focuses on Hana as a full and complete woman outside of romantic love, and explores self-love, familial love, and community love and care through the novel - with a special emphasis on the Toronto Golden Crescent neighborhood.  With concerns over the failing restaurant run by her mother for so long, Hana has to fight to keep traditions alive but also has deep passion for audio broadcasting and the modern ways people connect to each other. Both Aydin and Hana have to wrestle with those pressures and the possible gentrification of their Muslim neighborhood in Scarborough.  Hot On the Shelf (39:09): Holly: Independent People by Halldor Laxness Devin: Text Appeal by Amber Roberts What's Making Our Hearts Race (43:08): Holly: A new season of reading in 2024 Devin: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom   Instagram: @heartsanddaggerspod Website: www.heartsanddaggerspod.com   If you like what you hear, please tell your friends and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so that we can find our perfect audience.

Show notes: Hey friends! Happy New Year! We're thrilled to be back in your ears after our holiday break. Today, we're giving you a recap of what we read in December. In case you need a refresher, this means we're reviewing 5 books each that we read in the month. Here's to more reading in 2024!   Click here to join us on Patreon for exclusive bonus bookish goodies! Get our monthly overflow and new books episodes, our private Facebook group, and more. Plus, supporting us in this way just shows that you love what we do!   Find the time stamped show notes below with links to all of the fun things we mentioned.   Something Bookish: [2:17] S: StoryGraph [3:22] M: The Ultimate Best Books of 2023 list from LitHub The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride   Books We Read in December: [6:53] M: Christmas at the Island Hotel by Jenny Colgan [9:10] S: Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis [10:59] M: Much Ado About Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin [13:28] S: Christmas by the Book by Anne Marie Ryan [15:15] M: Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam [18:24] S: Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet [21:45] M: What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe [24:15] S: Reproduction by Louisa Hall [26:29] M: All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers [28:50] S: Maybe Next Time by Cesca Major   [30:42] The Rest of the Books We Read in December Want our show notes delivered right to your inbox? Join our RTL Substack so that you'll get a link for every single book we mention with no extra work. It's free! Follow RTL on Instagram: @readingthroughlifepod Follow Sarah on Instagram: @sarahhartleyco  Follow Mia on Instagram: @fastlifeinslowlane   * The books noted above contain affiliate links. This means that we may get a small kickback if you purchase through our links, at no additional cost to you.  

Ulka Simone Mohanty narrates a joyous celebration of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Ramadan as two new friends are stranded in scenic Snow Falls, Canada, during a blizzard. Mohanty displays a fun sense of humor as multiple disasters threaten the travelers. While Maryam Aziz helps her family manage her sister's wedding postponements and reflects on her own desires, and bustling Anna examines her life choices, Mohanty highlights their emotional journeys with a comforting intimacy. They discover a welcoming community in Snow Falls, and may just find a new holiday romance in the sweet small Canadian town. Mohanty fosters an atmosphere of wonder as travel delays turn into the best holiday ever. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile's website. Published by Penguin Audio. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/AUDIOFILE and get on your way to being your best self. Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from HarperAudio. Get up-close to artists you admire with Willie Nelson's Energy Follows Thought, Melissa Etheridge's Talking to My Angels, and Jada Pinkett Smith's Worthy. Listen to samples at www.hc.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our latest read, hosts Simone, Tanya and Deb discuss “Three Holidays and a Wedding” a team effort from authors, Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley. As strangers and seatmates Maryam and Anna fly to Toronto over the holidays — Maryam to her sister's impromptu wedding, and Anna to meet her boyfriend's wealthy family for the first time—neither expect that severe turbulence will scare them into confessing their deepest hopes and fears to one another. They end up being forced to delay those holiday plans thanks to a Snowmageddon scenario… and land at a quirky inn on the outskirts of Snow Falls — a picture-perfect town where a holiday romance. But as Maryam and Anna start to feel the magic of Snow Falls — and find love better than their deepest hopes — they just might realize there's no place they'd rather be for the holidays!!!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Saturday December 16, 2023 edition of the Richard Crouse Show we get to know Tom Wilson. He is a Canadian music legend, famed storyteller and visual artist. Wilson's memoir, “Beautiful Scars” reveals the impact of discovering his Indigenous heritage after a chance encounter with a stranger caused him to question everything he had always known about his past. As a musician he has won the Polaris Prize, Juno Awards, and has certified gold and platinum records. His song writing has seen his works recorded by and with artists such as: Sarah McLachlan, Jason Isbell, Colin James, Lucinda Williams, Mavis Staples as well as his own bands Lee Harvey Osmond, Junkhouse, and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. Today we talk about creativity, specifically around a new show called “Amplify.” Each episode features a different Indigenous artist, and in his episode, Tom Wilson crafts a powerful song based on a famous painting by Métis artist Christi Belcourt. In conversation at a diner, the two remarkable artists explore their creative processes and sources of inspiration. Find the show on APTN or streaming on APTN lumi. Then, I welcome Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley, both internationally best-selling authors, and now, bestselling co-authors of the new romantic comedy novel “Three Holidays and a Wedding.” The story takes place in the year 2000 when Hannukah, Christmas and Ramadan all overlap. It follows two strangers who meet on a plane headed to Toronto but due to the weather end up in a charming small town with all the holiday spirit. Alternating between the perspectives of Maryam and Anna, you get a story about different cultures coming together, unlikely friendships and two separate love stories

On the Saturday December 16, 2023 edition of the Richard Crouse Show we get to know Tom Wilson. He is a Canadian music legend, famed storyteller and visual artist. Wilson's memoir, “Beautiful Scars” reveals the impact of discovering his Indigenous heritage after a chance encounter with a stranger caused him to question everything he had always known about his past. As a musician he has won the Polaris Prize, Juno Awards, and has certified gold and platinum records. His song writing has seen his works recorded by and with artists such as: Sarah McLachlan, Jason Isbell, Colin James, Lucinda Williams, Mavis Staples as well as his own bands Lee Harvey Osmond, Junkhouse, and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. Today we talk about creativity, specifically around a new show called “Amplify.” Each episode features a different Indigenous artist, and in his episode, Tom Wilson crafts a powerful song based on a famous painting by Métis artist Christi Belcourt. In conversation at a diner, the two remarkable artists explore their creative processes and sources of inspiration. Find the show on APTN or streaming on APTN lumi. Then, I welcome Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley, both internationally best-selling authors, and now, bestselling co-authors of the new romantic comedy novel “Three Holidays and a Wedding.” The story takes place in the year 2000 when Hannukah, Christmas and Ramadan all overlap. It follows two strangers who meet on a plane headed to Toronto but due to the weather end up in a charming small town with all the holiday spirit. Alternating between the perspectives of Maryam and Anna, you get a story about different cultures coming together, unlikely friendships and two separate love stories.

Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley reveal why they teamed up to write a festively funny multi-faith rom-com, kids' book experts Bee Quammie and Bridget Raymundo talk about the titles they loved in 2023, Montreal author-Illustrator Marie-Louise Gay answers The Next Chapter's Proust questionnaire, and more.

Hello! Seeing as Cozy Christmas Reads has become an annual tradition for Medium Lady Talks I wanted to make sure those of you tuned in to this feed have a chance to enjoy the THIRD annual Cozy Christmas Reads Episode! Happy Holidays and Merry Reading!!! xo   Hello, hi, and welcome to Medium Lady Reads this is episode 12, Cozy Christmas Reads 2023; Featuring Ali Oppenlaender and Stephanie Cunningham. This week's episode is extra special, because not only do you have Erin and Jillian, but you have the other two members of their Buddy Read Group, Ali and Stef. Together they're going to be discussing their favorite cozy books that would be perfect to read this holiday season. This episode was recorded in separate locations, but it is just as full of love and fun! In This Episode: All four ladies check in and share how they're reading is going. If you'd like to go back and listen to the previous episodes of Cozy Christmas Reads, you can listen to 2021's episode here and 2022's episode here. Each woman shares their definition of what a Cozy Christmas Read is to them. The women go round-robin through their recommendations. Prepare for 8 new cozy reads! Next up are hot takes, listen to the episode to hear what the ladies are sharing their thoughts on. Parnassus Books on IG: https://www.instagram.com/parnassusbooks/?hl=en Supposedly Fun on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/supposedlyfun, especially his episode reviewing the NYT Top 100 books of 2023: https://youtu.be/84IoxwSjAyo?si=4C7IwUI46L9QTuhC  Best of Goodreads 2023 List To end the show the ladies share their holds list.    Books Mentioned In This Episode: Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan A Season for Second Chances by Jenny Bayliss Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow The Princess and The Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz The One in a Million Boy by Monica Wood  Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune Legends & Lattes by Travis Balder Beyond the Four Kingdoms Series by Melanie Cellier The Grace of Wild Things by Heather Fawcett Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett A Family for St. Nick: A Heartwarming Holiday Romance by Barbara Meyers The Maid by Nita Prose A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss The Things We Leave Unfinished by Rebecca Yarros The Woman in Me by Britney Spears Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin & Marissa Stapley All I Want for Christmas by Maggie Knox A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy & Sierra Simone Foster by Claire Keegan If you enjoyed this episode we would love it if you recommended us to a friend or loved one!  Be sure to take a screenshot and share on Instagram stories, and tag both Jillian (@jillianfindinghappy) and Erin (@medium.lady), or the podcast @mediumladyreads, so that they can reshare the love! Thanks for listening and if you enjoyed what you heard, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts! Tune in on December 27th for the next episode of the Medium Lady Reads Podcast.  

Do you enjoy cosy holiday romances? Are you a fan of Hallmark movies? If yes, Margarita has a recommendation for you: Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley. From two bestselling Canadian authors comes a multi-faith holiday rom-com about the delightful havoc that occurs when Christmas, Ramadan and Hanukkah all fall at the same time, and two strangers-turned-friends are snowbound in the small, charming town of Snow Falls along with the cast and crew of a holiday romance movie, nosy family members, and their lifelong crushes. Find this title in the FVRL collection: https://fvrl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S21C1900204

Rebecca and Tara combine two great Christmas-related subjects.  First, an interview with Canadian author and storyteller extraordinaire Jeremy John (@jjjeremyjohn)! Robert's Hill (Or the Time I Pooped My Snowsuit) and Other Christmas Stories The Strange Grave of Mikey Dunbar: and Other Stories to Make You Poop Your Pants The Death Swing at Falcon Lake: and S'more Summer Stories to Make You Poop Your Pants (available May 2024) Second, Tara (@onabranchreads) shares her recommended Christmas or winter books for the upcoming season! Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley The Holiday Match by Tori Samuels The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan All I Want for Christmas; The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien A Holly Jolly Diwali by Sonya Lalli  

It's part one of our 2023 recommendation request episodes! Jess and Trisha talk about diverse paranormal romances, romances with ace representation, holiday romances, and more! Follow the podcast via RSS, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. To get even more romance recs and news, sign up for our Kissing Books newsletter! It's happening, readers — we're bringing paperbacks! Whether you hate carrying around bulky hardcovers, you're on a budget, you want a wider range of recommendations, or all of the above, you can now get a paperback subscription from TBR, curated just for you by one of our Bibliologists. You can also gift it (and the holidays, they are coming.) Get all the details at mytbr.co. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. News Book club is coming back in early 2024 - huge thanks to everyone who sent suggestions! We're reading The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz, so read along with us! Also, check out Jackie Lau's Kickstarter while you still can! Books Discussed The Duke Gets Desperate by Diana Quincy The Grim Reaper's Lawyer by Mea Monique Human Enough by E.S. Yu Big Bad Wolf by Suleikha Snyder What the Hex by Alexis Daria The Blacksmith Queen by G.A. Aiken Bitterburn by Ann Aguirre Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Canas Their Troublesome Crush by Xan West Perfect Rhythm by Jae The Romantic Agenda by Claire Kann Thaw by Elyse Springer The Lights on Knockbridge Lane by Roan Parrish In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren  Lighting the Flames by Sarah Wendell Merry Inkmas by Talia Hibbert Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley Second Chances in New Port Stephen by T.J. Alexander It's a Fabulous Life by Kelly Farmer Being Merry by Meka James Time to Shine by Rachel Reid Mistletoe and Mishigas by M.A. Wardell Let us know what you're reading, what you're thinking, and what you're thinking about what you're reading! As always, you can find Jess and Trisha at the WIR email address (wheninromance@bookriot.com). You can also find us on Twitter (@jessisreading), or Instagram (@jess_is_reading and @trishahaleybrown), and Jess is even on TikTok (@jess_isreading). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is it possible? Should we even try to detox from social media? What effect does it have on our writing if we do? Uzma Jalaluddin is the author of Ayesha at Last and Hana Khan Carries On. A high school teacher, she is also a Toronto Star columnist and a contributor to The Atlantic. Her first novel was optioned for film by Pascal Pictures and her second novel was optioned for film by Kaling International and Amazon Studios. She lives in Toronto with her family. Learn more online uzmajalaluddin.com. Much Ado About Nada is her most recent release. How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you'll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing.✏️ Can I email you some writing help? http://rachaelherron.com/write

Rebecca and Tara discuss the upcoming Eden Mills Writers' Festival in Eden Mills, Ontario, which takes place on Sunday, September 10, 2023 and runs from noon to 5:30 pm.  Tickets are on sale now! https://edenmillswritersfestival.ca/festival-sunday/schedule/ Author sessions they plan to attend: Rebecca:  Michael Melgaard, Not That Kind of Place Zalika Reid-Benta, River Mumma Brett Popplewell, Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain, and the Search for a Hidden Past Don Gillmor, To the River: Losing My Brother Gabriel Allahdua, Harvesting Freedom: The Life of a Migrant Worker in Canada  Tara: Jessica Johns, Bad Cree Ali Hassan, Is There Bacon in Heaven? Uzma Jalaluddin, Much Ado About Nothing Amy Jones, Pebble & Dove Michelle Min Sterling, Camp Zero Janika Oza, A History of Burning  Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers Katherena Vermette, The Circle Tara also highlighted @trishtalksbooks September TBR challenge on Bookstagram.  It's not too late to join in! Rebecca and Tara shared the news that they are planning to launch a patreon account in January 2024 to grow their bookish community! Canada Reads American Style is now an affiliate of Bookshop.org, where your purchases support local independent bookstores.  Our curated shop includes books discussed on the podcast.  When you purchase a book through our virtual bookshop, a portion of the sales benefits a local bookstore, as well as the podcast, which helps offset the costs of the show. 

Today, we have the recording of our delightful panel celebrating the launch of Uzma Jalaluddin’s latest book, Much Ado About Nada, with Uzma, Sahar Jahani, and Ausma Zehanat Khan! This conversation was wide ranging and a lot of fun. Our panelists talk about writing process, book to film adaptations, growing up with a lack of industry representation, being ambitious Muslim women, and then take audience questions and face a lighting round of tough choices like which is your favorite Jane Austen adaptation? (Becca's is the 1995 BBC Pride & Prejudice.)

For this author chat, we talk to Uzma Jalaluddin about her latest contemporary romance Much Ado about Nada, a contemporary adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion taking place in a Muslim convention in Toronto. We chat with Uzma about her love of Austen, her background as an English teacher, and more!Follow Uzma on IG at @uzmajalaluddin and check out her novel, Much Ado about Nada, available now on the Books & Boba bookshop!*Support the podcast by supporting our new Patreon*Follow our hosts:Reera Yoo (@reeraboo)Marvin Yueh (@marvinyueh)Follow us:FacebookTwitterGoodreads GroupThe Books & Boba June 2023 pick is We Have Always Been Here by Lena NguyenThis podcast is part of Potluck: An Asian American Podcast CollectiveMentioned in this episode:Books & Boba started a Patreon!After 6 and a half years, Books & Boba has started a Patreon! Our little podcast has been a wonderful labor of love and we've been proud of the book discussions and author chats that we've been able to bring to you all, but we want to do more! We've got big dreams for Books & Boba and so we're asking our community for support. Help us grow the book club so we can support more books written by Asian diaspora authors! The Books & Boba Patreon has 2 membership tiers, our “Regular Boba” tier at $3 a month which gives you access to the brand new Books & Boba members-only discord server, and the “Honey Boba” premium tier which comes with discord access as well as access to our new “Boba Chat” podcast where Marvin and Reera chat about non-book related things as well as answer member questions. Check out our patreon at patreon.com/booksandbobaPatreon

Uzma Jalaluddin is having a banner year. She has two books coming out in 2023: Much Ado About Nada and Three Holidays and a Wedding (coauthored with Marissa Stapley). She wrote her first play, The Rishta, which was performed in Montreal this past spring. And her second novel, Hana Khan Carries On, is currently in development for film with Mindy Kaling. In this episode, Uzma and Annmarie talk about writing, rom-coms, and representation, and how important it is to read widely and wisely to learn the multitudes contained in one another's stories.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Uzma Jalaluddin's latest novel, “Much Ado About Nada,” tells the story of Nada Syed, a young Muslim woman who's approaching 30 and being pressured to find a husband by her mother. When she's forced to attend a Muslim convention, she runs the risk of revealing a secret past she's kept buried for years. Uzma tells Tom how female ambition inspired the novel, how she goes about writing a great romantic story, and what it's like having her books being optioned for film.

Just in time for summer, we talk about what we think makes for a good beach read and offer a variety of recommendations, several of which are recent releases. We also chat about why we enjoy reimagined stories, whether inspired by Jane Austen novels, fairy tales or other source material. Titles discussed in this episode include: Book Lovers by Emily Henry; Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld; Hooked, Scarred, Wretched and Twisted by Emily McIntire; This Bird Has Flown by Susanna Hoffs; The Last Word by Taylor Adams; and Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto. Also mentioned: Beach Read and Happy Place by Emily Henry; Incense and Sensibility by Sonali Dev; Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin; Eligible, Prep and Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld; Crossed by Emily McIntire; The Queen of the South by Arturo Pérez-Reverte; the movie Notting Hill; Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto; and The Maid by Nita Prose. Check out books and movies at countycat.mcfls.org, wplc.overdrive.com and hoopladigital.com. For more about WAPL, visit westallislibrary.org. Music: Tim Moor via Pixabay

Your TBR is about to get longer! This and next week, we will tell you about 25 very on-brand upcoming releases we are looking forward to reading. Books mentioned on this episode: The Stronghold by Dino Buzzati and translated by Lawrence Venuti, The Book that Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence, The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera, Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See, Crooked Manifesto by Colson Whitehead, Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue, Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi, Goodbye, Eri by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Much Ado About Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin, The Poisoner's Ring by Kelley Armstrong, The Water Outlaws by SL Huang, 24 Hours with Gaspar by Sabda Armandio and translated by Lara Norgaard, Shark Heart by Emily Habeck, Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong, and Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan and translated by Chi-Young Kim. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/keepitfictional/message

With Valentine's Day around the corner, we have some ideas for romance novels, even if you're not a romance reader. As always, we'll end with what we're reading this week. Books and other media mentioned in this episode: James Patterson books Elin Hilderbrand books Danielle Steel books Colleen Hoover books David Mitchell books Ann's picks: People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry (buy from Bookshop) – Emily Henry books – Book Lovers by Emily Henry (buy from Bookshop) – ALA RUSA CODES The Reading List – the committee we reference all the time – Beth O'Leary books The Bodyguard by Katherine Center (buy from Bookshop) – Victoria Christopher Murray books – Tracie Peterson books – Shelley Shephard Gray books – A Holly Jolly Diwali by Sonya Lalli (buy from Bookshop) Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean (buy from Bookshop) – Love By Numbers series by Sarah MacLean Halle's picks: The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare (buy from Bookshop) – Bridgerton (TV) – Bridgertons series by Julia Quinn – Beauty and the Beast – Eloisa James books – Pop Culture Happy Hour (podcast) – The Duke and I by Julia Quinn (buy from Bookshop) – Whitney, My Love by Judith McNaught (buy from Bookshop) Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez (buy from Bookshop) – Abby Jimenez books – The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez (buy from Bookshop) Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin (buy from Bookshop) – Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (buy from Bookshop) – Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal (buy from Bookshop) What We're Reading This Week: Ann: The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley (buy from Bookshop) – The Guest List by Lucy Foley (buy from Bookshop) – Rear Window (film) Halle: Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake (buy from Bookshop) – Bright Falls series by Ashley Herring Blake Well-Read on Facebook Well-Read on Twitter Well-Read on Bookshop Well-Read on Instagram

Uzma Jalaluddin reimagines classic loves stories in a contemporary, urban, distinctly Muslim setting. She is the author of the novels Ayesha at Last and Hana Khan Carries On, both of which have been optioned to be made into movies. Uzma talks about the enduring qualities of romance stories, why she has no plans to quit her day job as a high school teacher and what her students think when she tells them she's in business with Hollywood star Mindy Kaling.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

# 405 Book Review With Kathy Diamond: Hana Khan Carries On By Uzma Jalaluddin by City of Côte Saint-Luc

Ayesha Shamsi is in her mid-twenties, un-married, and lives with her family. Though her community would have expected her married by her age, Ayesha is more worried about her career. She's an aspiring poet, but works a modest teaching job to pay back her uncle, who funded her education. She's often reminded by her family that she's running out of time to meet someone, unlike her gorgeous younger cousin, Hafsa, who is rejecting her hundredth marriage proposal. Ayesha and her cousin are nothing alike. Hafsa's family hopes Ayesha's maturity will rub off on Hafsa a bit, so they ask Ayesha to help keep an eye on her. Yet, when Hafsa doesn't show up for a planning meeting at the mosque, Ayesha finds herself covering for her cousin and in turn, meeting a handsome stranger with some curious eccentricities. When a surprise engagement is announced between the ever-elusive Hafsa and Ayesha's love interest, Ayesha has to try to be the mature, nurturing cousin she's always been, even though all she wants is to steal Hafsa's new fiancé for herself.

Once upon a time, Anthony and Athena went on an unforgettable date, where they bonded over their shared love for romance novel “Ayesha at Last.” Cut to today, where they are engaged and still sharing a love of books. Today Sarah and Alisha surprise this couple with their fairy godmother, Author Uzma Jalaluddin, to witness first hand the power of a great book. Stay tuned for her surprise entrance!    Get your daily happily ever after on LoveStruck Daily, with new love stories every Monday-Friday. In the meantime, follow @LoveStruckDaily on Instagram and Twitter for extra content. View episode transcript here ----> https://tinyurl.com/athenaanthony And for goodness sakes...just kiss already!!!   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's episode of Currently Reading, Mary and Kaytee are discussing: Bookish Moments: a fabulous buddy read and a young reader milestone Current Reads: this week we have a lot of books we really loved. There may be gushing. Deep Dive: an on-ramp to romance, from fade to black to spicy fun Book Presses: a perfectly midwestern story and a short story collection As per usual, time-stamped show notes are below with references to every book and resource we mentioned in this episode. If you'd like to listen first and not spoil the surprise, don't scroll down!  New: we are now including transcripts of the episode (this link only works on the main site). These are generated by AI, so they may not be perfectly accurate, but we want to increase accessibility for our fans! *Please note that all book titles linked below are Bookshop affiliate links. Your cost is the same, but a small portion of your purchase will come back to us to help offset the costs of the show. If you'd prefer to shop on Amazon, you can still do so here through our main storefront. Anything you buy there (even your dishwasher detergent!) kicks a small amount back to us. Thanks for your support!*   . . . . :28 - Currently Reading Patreon 1:53 - Bookish Moment of the Week 2:12 - Piranesi by Susanna Clarke 3:37 - Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann 4:57 - Current Reads 5:13 - The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (Mary) 7:40 - Erdrich's Bookshop Birchbark Books 9:12 - The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony (Kaytee) 11:52 - To Sir With Love by Lauren Layne (Mary) 14:23 - Dear White Peacemakers by Osheta Moore (Kaytee) 14:45 - Shalom Sistas by Osheta Moore  14:46 - Season 4: Episode 14 16:57 - A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers (Mary) 17:13 - Cackle by Rachel Harrison  20:01 - If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy (Kaytee) 20:29 - Dumplin by Julie Murphy 22:10 - By the Book by Jasmine Guillory  22:48 - One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London 23:03 - Deep Dive: Our Romance On Ramp 26:20 - Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center 26:22 - How to Walk Away by Katherine Center 26:24 - Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center 27:01 - A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer 27:10 - Cinder by Marissa Meyer  27:33 - Fat Chance Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado 27:48 - When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon 28:24 - To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han 29:03 - A Pho Love Story by Loan Le  29:05 - Tweet Cute by Emma Lord 29:09 - To Sir With Love by Lauren Layne 29:35 - The Fault in Our Stars by John Green 29:36 - Five Feet Apart by Rachel Lippincott 30:09 - The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding 30:23 - Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum 31:15 - A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn (Veronica Speedwell #1) 31:55 - If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy 32:27 - Attachments by Rainbow Rowell 32:28 - Landline by Rainbow Rowell 32:29 - Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell 32:47 - The People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry 32:48 - Beach Read by Emily Henry 32:54 - The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary  33:36 - Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalaluddin 33:40 - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 34:15 - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 34:18 - One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid  34:19 - After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid 35:28 - Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston 35:29 - One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston 36:11 - Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall 36:16 - The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun 36:57 - Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller 36:58 - The Brightest Star in Paris by Diana Biller 37:32 - The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling 37:53 - The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams 38:22 - Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory  39:32 - Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal 42:50 - Books We'd Like to Press Into Your Hands 43:06 - Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal (Mary) 44:54 - Minisode w/ J. Ryan Stradal 45:21- The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw (Kaytee) Connect With Us: Meredith is @meredith.reads on Instagram Kaytee is @notesonbookmarks on Instagram Mindy is @gratefulforgrace on Instagram Mary is @maryreadsandsips on Instagram currentlyreadingpodcast.com @currentlyreadingpodcast on Instagram currentlyreadingpodcast@gmail.com Support us at patreon.com/currentlyreadingpodcast

We discuss Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin.  We identify with our heroine-a T-Swift loving podcaster like us.  We cheer Hana on as she navigates love, family, and career.  Mindy Kaling is producing an adaptation of this book, and we're excited!

Summary: Welcome to our first episode! Holly and Devin come together to discuss modern retellings of classic stories. They compare and contrast each book with the original text, and evaluate how the authors wove the classic plot lines and characters into a modern retelling. Holly and Devin share books they're excited to read next, and then dive into pop culture spiciness to wrap things up.  Topics Discussed: The Heart (1:47): Devin shares her thoughts on Ayesha and Last by Uzma Jalaluddin, a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Her key takeaways included:  The structures of Austen-era society aligned almost perfectly with Muslim modern society including family involvement in love and marriage. Jalaluddin went further than Austen with harsh critiques of modern society's racism, sexism, fatphobia and xenophobia.    Ayesha at Last takes a plotline folks have read and watched a million times and uses it as a gateway into a culture and ideologies with which some might be unfamiliar.   The Dagger (13:13): Holly shares her perspective on The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins, a retelling of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Her key takeaways included: The Southern Gothic rendering of the haunting classic featuring transgressive thoughts, desires, and impulses was a fresh but resonant take on Jane Eyre. Hawkins leveraged a “Desperate Housewives” dynamic with women in the neighborhood to explore the fragile social order and Jane's desperation to belong. Jane becomes intrigued by Bea (the deceased wife) and her rags-to-riches tale even as she remains haunted by her own past, finding herself working to, in some ways, become Bea.  Hot Off the Shelf (31:30): Holly: Scarlet, book two of The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer Devin: A Better Man, book 15 of the Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny What's Making Our Hearts Race (34:27): Holly: “The Vow”, series on HBO about cult NXIVM and leader Keith Raniere Devin: “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the most recent Marvel film released Instagram: @heartsanddaggerspod Website: www.heartsanddaggerspod.com If you like what you hear, please tell your friends and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so that we can find our perfect audience.

Uzma Jalaluddin (@uzmajalaluddin) is the bestselling author of Hana Khan Carries On and Ayesha At Last. During Uzma's day job as an English teacher, Uzma has built a wildly successful (and, unbelievably nascent) career as a novelist. Most recently, Mindy Kaling announced that she would be producing an adaptation of Hana Khan Carries On for Amazon Studios. While the Muslim rom-com is being produced, Uzma is busy working on her third novel. Listen to Uzma's story on today's epi!  Follow Uzma on Twitter @uzmawrites Check out Uzma's website --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/laylool/message

Hello dear friends,We're heading into the holidays - and next week our topic is Bad Families from Jane Austen, just in time for our family gatherings for the US holiday, Thanksgiving Day. Stay tuned for that! But first, let's talk about romance.Specifically, let's talk about Muslim romance.The author Uzma Jalaluddin is well known in the Jane Austen world for her retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Her novel Ayesha At Last puts Lizzy Bennet - or Ayesha - in a large Muslim family in the Scarborough neighborhood of Toronto, where she's navigating complicated cousins, domineering matriarchs, and the rituals of marriage proposals, all while hoping to find the time to follow her ambitions for poetry.Uzma Jalaluddin herself seems outrageously busy.When she's not writing novels, teaching high school, and parenting, she writes a column for the Toronto Star about education, family, and life - it's called “Samosas and Maple Syrup.”Ms. Jalaluddin's latest novel is Hana Khan Carries On. It's been optioned for the screen by Amazon Studios and writer-producer Mindy Kaling.In this conversation, Uzma Jalaluddin tells us how she discovered Jane Austen - as a teen, at the local library in the Toronto neighborhood she grew up in - Scarborough. That neighborhood is also the setting for both of her romcom novels, Ayesha At Last and Hana Khan Carries On. It's a diverse, vibrant neighborhood that now her readers also feel right at home in - at least in our imaginations.Enjoy this podcast, available on Spotify and Apple, or by simply clicking Play, above. Check out the links to more Muslim women writers and artists below, send us other recommendations, and leave us a comment! And for those who prefer words to audio or like both, here's an excerpt from our conversation:Uzma Jalaluddin I was - I am and was - a voracious reader. Growing up, I was constantly in the library. I was that kid who - the high school that I went to was right across the street from a large public library. And so during lunch breaks after school, I would just head over to the library and borrow books and hang out there. And I just studied there, I would just basically live there. And even my school library, of course, had a pretty good collection of books. And that's really where I was among my people, when I was in the library.Plain Jane And was that in Scarborough, Toronto? Uzma Jalaluddin That's right. It was in Scarborough. It's the Cedarbrae library, if any of your listeners are from Toronto. It's a very large building,Plain Jane And shout out to libraries and librarians.Uzma Jalaluddin Oh my God, hashtag-library-love, I have so much love. And I think so many writers can relate to this, right? Like you become a writer out of a sense of, a love of reading. And I think I was a teenager - I must have been 15 or 16 years old - and I heard about Jane Austen. And I was one of those kids that just was like, “I want to read all the classics. I'm really interested. I'm going to try everything. I'm going to try reading Dickens and, you know, the Russian novels and Anna Karenina. And let me try Shakespeare,” and all of this. …So I picked up Pride and Prejudice, and I read it. And I remember the language was, it felt very old-fashioned to me. And it took me a while to get through it. And I did read it. And then I remember after I - because it takes a while, especially as a teenage girl, for it to sort of pick up ... there was something about that book that just stuck with me. And I kept going back to it and rereading it. And I'm a kid and then I'm a child of the ‘90s. So when the 1995 A&E  special came out, you know, I got the box set. And I would watch it. My mom watched it with me, it was this thing that we both really enjoy doing. And I think I've said this before, multiple times: But the books that you read when you're young, especially at those formative ages, the ones that you love, they just stay with you. Those stories just stay with you. And I feel like Jane Austen and specifically Pride and Prejudice - and I did go on further and read all of her novels - have traveled with me throughout my life. And I'm so glad that they have, because … my take on Elizabeth and Darcy came out in Ayesha At Last. And that is a book that has brought me so much joy, sharing with the world, writing it, and all of the things that have come afterwards. It's been truly a privilege.Plain JaneI love the way you say that Jane Austen travels with you through life. That is something that really brings people - Jane Austen readers - together too. Because we kind of have fellow travelers traveling with Jane Austen through life when we have this community, which is cool. But I know that from hearing you talk with Janeite communities, and reading some of your interviews as well, that you really see it - correct me if I'm wrong - but you seem to see yourself as a writer first and then the genre romance, the retellings, come second? So it seems like you were writing Ayesha At Last, and those characters were kind of taking shape, and the story was taking shape, and you realized, there's an element of Pride and Prejudice and Jane Austen in this, which isn't surprising. Can you tell us how you ended up with a retelling?Uzma Jalaluddin  My first novel took me a really long time to write. And then it's probably just a function of the fact that I'm a busy person. I'm a high school teacher. I also have two young boys. And when I started writing this book in 2010, I knew that it was going to be a long marathon. And the book wasn't published until 2018. So it took me about seven years for the entire book to kind of take place. And it wasn't until my fourth or fifth draft, that I gave the book to a friend of mine. And she she pointed out that this has a lot of the elements of Pride and Prejudice. Specifically, she was pointing out the fact that I seem to have a Mr. Darcy character in Khalid, and Elizabeth Bennet character in Ayesha, and a Mr. Wickham character in Tarek, and I thought, “Oh, my goodness, I didn't even see it.” And that's the ironic thing. I mean, I was writing a book and I was leaning into these tropes, these well-known characters that I love, and I didn't see it. And I made a very deliberate choice. And it was her suggestion, but it was also something that I decided to lean into. I thought, “I'm a completely unknown writer. Here I am sitting in Markham, Ontario, writing this book. No one's heard of me.” I wasn't writing for the Star at this time, either - [I'm a] high school teacher. And on top of that, I'm writing about these unapologetically Muslim characters. Or, as you said, [going] so deep inside of the community that it feels like all I'm talking about are Muslim characters. Who's going to give me a chance? This was like 2014, right? Who's going to give me a chance? Nobody. So let me do something that pays homage to a story that I love, which is Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and also turn it and use it for my own devices. Because that story, I think, really resonates with South Asian communities to this day, even though the book itself was written over 200 years ago. And so that's what I did. I reread - for the dozenth time or more - Pride and Prejudice, and I picked out the pieces that I thought would really translate well, and I went about and I rewrote my book. And it felt like I should have done that from the beginning, because that would have saved me years of drafting. Because that's the book it was trying to be, I just didn't see it.[T]he books that you read when you're young, especially at those formative ages, the ones that you love, they just stay with you. Those stories just stay with you. And I feel like Jane Austen and specifically Pride and Prejudice - and I did go on further and read all of her novels - have traveled with me throughout my life. Plain Jane  Well, it's helpful to have some scaffolding for your imagination to just go wild within … to just kind of hold you together. So that does make sense. And you're saying something really profound here in a way, making me realize that the stories of Jane Austen and the Jane Austen community - not to overstate their influence - can provide access to voices, provide an audience, provide access, and provide a way for diverse voices. You've said something really interesting in the Toronto Star, you talked about the challenge that you felt like was in front of you to get your story. And the story of this family, of these characters in the public eye, and published, and you have written in the Toronto Star that “the lack of diversity in the arts has harmed me in ways I'm only starting to untangle.” Can you tell us a little bit about the lack of diversity in the arts, and how and what a challenge that has been for you?Uzma Jalaluddin When I wrote that piece, in particular, I pitched it to my editor as a way for me to sort of unpack this, and almost have this as a battle cry. It was an encouragement for parents, my fellow parents - who are maybe first-generation immigrants, unlike me, or maybe are like me, second-generation immigrants … they're, you know, so far removed from their home countries - to encourage those children to go into the creative arts. Because I feel like in Asian communities, in particular, there's such a push to have kids really establish themselves. And I'm speaking - forgive me, I'm speaking very generally here, and I am speaking from a Canadian immigrant perspective here as well, it could be different other places - but I feel as an educator, who teaches a lot of Asian students, there's such a push for children to go into traditional professional fields. So to go into the sciences, to go into the STEM fields, the math fields, engineering. And art is not even considered important. And yet, art is the basis of culture. And culture is what keeps our society going. And the people who are making the art are very rarely the same ones who represent that same Asian immigrant subset that I'm talking about, or even any marginalized communities. Things are changing now. But certainly when I was growing up in the ‘90s, and early 2000s, there was very limited representation of immigrants of South Asians, and definitely Muslims. And the types of stereotypes that I was exposed to, as a Muslim woman, were, quite frankly, very toxic. And one of the impacts of that is that … even though I clearly was interested in the creative fields, I've been writing since I was a kid, I've been reading my entire life, I have an aptitude for this and a talent for this. And yet, I never thought that I belonged in this industry, I didn't even know how to go about inserting myself into this industry. Beyond “maybe I should be a journalist” … And instead, I became a high school teacher, because I knew that it's a very stable job. I like people, I like kids. Okay, let me go and do that. But - I think I was telling my husband this - I started too late. I started in the creative arts, as an adult, as a mother, all of these responsibilities were already there. And so here I am in the position of juggling, like, five or six different jobs, and having a completely [booked] calendar. And so I want parents to know that … there are opportunities in the creative fields. There is money to be to be made in this. Yeah, you have to hustle a lot. And it's certainly not an easy place to be. But the impact on culture can be so vast, so important, as well. I get emails even now from people from people all over the world. I just had a letter from a young woman who lives in France and who said she read my book - unfortunately, Ayesha At Last has not been translated into French - but she read my book in English and she said she has never seen these types of stories represented where you have Muslim characters who are just living their life, who are falling in love, who are having funny adventures, and dealing with some serious things but also some lovely things, and how important it was to her, how much it meant for her to see this type of representation. And I think what it is, is for so long marginalized communities have been erased. And, like what we were just talking, about the point that you made really beautifully earlier about, the retelling is the way that Jane Austen can be reconfigured to represent different communities … And it's actually been a conversation I think in on Twitter, you know, about all the different diverse retellings? And should they even happen in the first place, which is a different conversation. But, I think …  it comes back to the idea that there was nothing for so long. And I know what it's like to feel like my stories, the things that I think are important, are just never represented on the page or on the screen.Plain JaneThat's really powerful. It's wonderful to hear. ...  you didn't feel there was a place for you and you forged a place. I feel like that's something that Jane Austen characters are doing. They feel left out of the conversation, marginalized, and they find their way in. … But you say something really powerful here, too: We need to talk about romance. So you mentioned also, to quote you again, in the Toronto Star ... that people of color need more romance. What do you mean by that? And how does this come about, when it comes to that representation, that lack of representation, or that negative representation - and romance?Uzma Jalaluddin I think the definition of romance needs to be expanded. Also, there seems to be a bit of a renaissance happening in the romance community, which I'm completely here for. And you know, in Romancelandia, as it's called online, which is the wider community of romance writers, consumers, creators, etc., there's so many up-to-date conversations that have been happening over the years, and I'm a newcomer to this. I've been a lifelong romance reader, but I've kind of stumbled on this community after I became a writer. And it's been fascinating to watch the types of conversations that are happening about race and identity and retellings and consent and just acceptance and tolerance in this very large genre.Plain Jane Yeah, … you said something else really powerful - that art is important. And as a journalist, I also feel that way. I feel like that's why I feel arts journalism, and humanities journalism, is important. Because … journalism is the first draft of history, right? … But to me, the interesting part, and the the heavy, impactful part of our history is not just what happened, but how we processed what happened, how we reacted to what happened, how communities and how individuals felt about what happened, and what we thought about what happened. And that to me, that's where the arts and humanities journalism is. … And so if you're looking at Arts and Humanities and the stories we tell, there's nothing more important right now. There's nothing more important in the last year and a half than how we process that. And that's why that's one reason I put a a microphone on the Jane Austen discussions, because the Jane Austen discussions involved, you know, Ibi Zoboi, and Uzma Jalaluddin, and so many people, Soniah Kamal, making the stories of Jane Austen relevant to today and adapting them to today. So I think that's not only okay, I think it's what is keeping it alive. And I'm also kind of quoting Damianne Scott here. … She says it very beautifully. She says ... Jane Austen doesn't want to be on a pedestal. She wants to be among the people. Uzma Jalaluddin  That is such a good insight. And I've always felt that, and I think that's why Jane Austen has kind of, as I said, traveled with me all my life …And I think Jane Austen, for whatever reason - maybe it's because of that sly wit, the satire, the description of regular everyday life, middle class life, really, and, of course, upper class life - is just so relatable. And I love what you're saying about art, I completely agree. And my take on it is that the art that has been made for decades has only ever focused on the white experience. And yet, that has been incomplete. If journalism is the first draft of history, and the art that is made is answering the questions of, how do we feel about this? We haven't been hearing from a very large segment of our population. And if we had been hearing about them, those voices have been oftentimes dismissed. [A]rt that has been made for decades has only ever focused on the white experience. And yet, that has been incomplete. If journalism is the first draft of history, and the art that is made is answering the questions of, how do we feel about this? We haven't been hearing from a very large segment of our population. And if we had been hearing about them, those voices have been oftentimes dismissed. … Commercial fiction is really where we have these conversations about, what are we obsessed with? What are we interested in? What's the hottest Netflix show? That's where culture is created. Really, [those are] the things that we're kind of thinking about. It's more than a momentary blip, right? It's like the trend in dystopian, the vampire fiction, all of this said something about what we're thinking about as a culture and as a society. And a lot of those stories were written by white authors. And if there are people of color, or if there are Black, indigenous, people of color in those stories, the creators are still largely white authors. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not a proponent of censorship, or anything like that. But I think we have to recognize that there has been traditionally, and culturally speaking, the effect of this has been an erasure of marginalized voices. And so I feel like things are changing slowly. Very, very slowly. But they are changing. And I'm interested in hearing those voices. And so part of that is romance. What does love look like to bring it back full circle?Plain JaneWe interrupted ourselves, but there you go. I was gonna bring it back to romance, but I just will say: Muslim romance,Uzma Jalaluddin  Yes! Which is something that is very rarely, if ever, explored, unless it is through the prism of culture. … So the main character, it's always the same type of storyline: The main character, if it's a woman, is pressed, has to break away from the bonds of her family, and has to basically give up everything about her culture and herself. And embrace the wider, usually North American, Western type of society in this way. She is freed - there's always kind of a white-savior complex type of storyline, or there is a rejection of her own community. I think we have to recognize that there has been traditionally, and culturally speaking, the effect of this has been an erasure of marginalized voices. And so I feel like things are changing slowly. Very, very slowly. But they are changing. And I'm interested in hearing those voices. And so part of that is romance. But Muslim romance, the thing that I'm interested in, is a little bit more nuanced than that. It can be love that's found with another Muslim person, with another person of color. It can be love that is found with someone who isn't Muslim and … it could be perhaps an LGBTQ exploration of this. I want all of the stories. I think we need to have all of these stories that show that the Muslim experience in North America that was an experience globally is not a monolith. My experience as someone who grew up in the ‘90s and early 2000s, in a more conservative Muslim family, is going to be different than someone who's growing up, you know, even in my neighboring country of the United States. But the stories that I write, I usually have two South Asian - both my books feature two South Asian or Muslim characters. And their faith is just the background information about them. They're not having conversations necessarily about, Should I be Muslim, or should I not? Should I take off my hijab? Will my father disown me? They come from loving families, they know who they are, and they're secure in that identity. And the romance really is about other things, you know, and because I write romcoms, they tend to be more situational. Plain JaneI love that. And it's something, as you said, your characters are unapologetically Muslim. And that's really fun to see. … [W]e have to talk about your Darcy character. So your leading man, Khalid … is like Darcy. And he really is like Darcy. But it's funny because … they're both stiff, somewhat formal and awkward, handsome, a little emotionally aloof, for various reasons. But Khalid has a very good reason and it's better than Darcy's reason: Khalid is part of a traditional Islamic community. And following the rules and interested in the rules. And Darcy's reason, as far as I can tell, is just that he's socially awkward. So in some ways, your Khalid and your “Darcy” has much more of a societal underpinning, stronger underpinning, than Darcy, where you're just kind of left at sea, like Elizabeth, thinking, “What's going on with him?” And then here's Ayesha, who doesn't have that question. She knows exactly what's going on with him. And she's got to work through it. So this is so much fun for, as you say, situational comedy. Can you talk about Khalid as Darcy?Uzma Jalaluddin  Khalid is the reason I wrote and I didn't give up on Ayesha At Last. I have to first put that out there, because he is the character that for some reason - this rarely happens for writers - but he just burst into my imagination completely, fully formed. I just knew who he was and knew what he wanted. I just completely understood him. I can't emphasize how rare this is, as someone who's trying to write their third book and I don't know anything about anything right now. It's just very rare. But when I finally … came to the realization that I was writing Pride and Prejudice, late in my drafting, when I finally put that together, that Khalid was Mr. Darcy, it just made so much sense. Because what I'm trying to do through Ayesha At Last is to write a really fun entertaining book that my readers will enjoy. But I'm also trying to engage in a conversation about appearance versus reality. So here's this guy. And I think that's what Jane Austen is trying to do as well. And in so many of her books, right? Here is this person who is judged from the moment that you see him because of the way that he dresses, because of the way that he acts, and the assumptions that the reader themselves might have about this type of person. And Darcy is the same way, right? He's an aristocratic man, everyone thinks that he's proud and he's disdainful. That says more about their own insecurities, though. Admittedly, he is quite rude. In the very beginning.Plain Jane  Of course, yeah ...Uzma Jalaluddin   Classic hero. And Khalid, in his own way, is awkward and bumbling and rude. But on top of the regular social awkwardness of a classic, romantic hero, we have that layer of his Muslim-ness. And his Muslim-ness comes out in very overt symbols that make the people surrounding him very uncomfortable, because he is really comfortable in the way that he embraces his faith. I purposely made him almost like a cartoonish Muslim guy. Like he was wearing a long white robe to work and a skullcap, he had an unkempt beard. And I did all this on purpose. I made him an extra on homeland. And yet I decided to put it in my book, because I wanted to throw this in my reader's face - and the Muslims and the non-Muslim readers: This is this is your villain. This is the guy that you've been trained to be afraid of. Look at how hot he is. Look at how sexy he is. Look at how romantic he is.Plain JaneI will make you fall in love!Uzma Jalaluddin Exactly, exactly. And in that way, I had a lot of fun deconstructing the Muslim man archetype. Because I live with Muslim men. I'm raising two Muslim men. I've been married to a Muslim man for nearly 20 years (he refuses to grow a beard, I keep trying to get him to grow one. He's not interested!) I have a brother, I have a loving father. I have uncles. And I never saw the men that I interact with on a daily basis, who were Muslim, really adequately represented in the wholeness of their person and their humanity. And I wanted to correct that. ...Plain JaneWhen it comes to Muslim romance, you have some interesting developments in Ayesha At Last. One thing that's interesting is that - I don't know if you would call her a white character, Caucasian character, if that's what she is - Clara? Her boyfriend Rob is super sluggish about proposing and he can't get his act together and Khalid, our hero, helps Clara negotiate a proposal and a dowry? And I don't know what you were wanting readers to get from this, if anything, but it had me wondering whether ... there are some things in traditional Muslim cultures and religious cultures that you think are helpful to women? That seemed to be what was being depicted. And if that is something that's probably worth unpacking -  that complicated aspect of rituals, and the rituals that we all embark on, whether we like it or not. They're in our culture.Uzma Jalaluddin Yeah, I never thought of it that way. I, to be honest, I just thought it would be really funny to have the girl get a rishta from her boyfriend, who she's been living with for five years. And the guy who sends her the rishta is this bearded Muslim man. I-  just in my head, right? Because I have to keep going! - and these jokes just keep me going. I did all this on purpose. I made him an extra on homeland. And yet I decided to put it in my book, because I wanted to throw this in my reader's face - and the Muslims and the non-Muslim readers: This is this is your villain. This is the guy that you've been trained to be afraid of. Look at how hot he is. Look at how sexy he is. Look at how romantic he is.But I think there's a lot of merit in what you said. Yeah, of course, cultures can learn from each other and gain certain positives and negatives. As much as I've learned, you know, from from my wider Western upbringing in Canada  -  I'm just as Canadian as I am South Asian, as I am Muslim, right? There's so much about all of these cultures that I've learned from, and hopefully other people can pick up from this. And really what Khalid is exhorting Rob to do is, say, “Why aren't you having this conversation? It's very obvious that Clara has been trying to hint to you for a very long time, why aren't you picking up the hand? It's time to, you know, figure this out, you're going to lose her. And if that is the consequence for your inattention that's on you. But here, let's just, let's just be completely upfront about this.” And I think this is someone who is very direct, I really appreciate this about South Asian marital practices. And I have to point out that the rishta process is South Asian, it's not really a Muslim thing. Okay, other cultures who are Muslim, they might have like a different marital custom. But it's a very South Asian practice, rishta, which is a proposal, like an arranged-marriage proposal. I really appreciate the directness of it. There's always a goal. It's like, we're not just casually dating. We're dating because we want to know if we can build a life together. And if that life together involves marriage, because that's what you want to do, that's fine. But, like, this isn't just for seeing each other, and let's see where this goes. No, no, there's none of that: There's a deadline within a certain amount of time. You've got to figure this out. And ... that's what Khalid brings to the table here. Plain Jane Rob will never change. That's the way Rob is always going to be - somebody's always gonna have to be strong and basically put it on the table. [O]ne thing that I had in my notes Uzma … that kind of made me laugh when I looked back and saw this in my notes, was, “We need to be talking more about Khadija.” You mentioned the wife of the Prophet Muhammad. Can you tell us about her and why she has an appearance in Ayesha At Last?Uzma Jalaluddin  Growing up I went to Sunday school, and you know, all of the type of stories that you learn, you know, like I'm sure Christian children are taught Bible stories, and Muslim kids are taught Muslim stories. So one of the stories that we're always told is that Prophet Muhammad was married to his first wife - because she died, and he later remarried - was a woman named Khadija, and she really liked Muhammad, peace be upon him. She really liked him, so much that she proposed marriage to him. And she was 15 years older than him. And actually, he was one of the traders that she hired. So he was actually working for her at the time. But she was really impressed by his honesty and his trustworthiness and his authenticity. And so, as you do, she was just straight up and said, “I'm interested in you. Are you interested in me? Let's get married.” And he accepted. And, you know, the traditional story was that he was extremely happy with his wife, even though he was 25, and she was 40. They were married for 15 years before she died. .. [W]hen he received revelation from God, as the traditional mythology goes, she was the first person who accepted Islam, the first person who supported him and believed him, and was his partner in all things - an equal partner, and in fact a more successful partner because she was the one who was the hard-headed businesswoman, who was kind of running things. And I just thought this story is not well known, I don't think, by a lot of people who aren't familiar with the Muslim faith. And it just goes to show you that there's so much emphasis on the darkness of the way that Muslims are portrayed around the world, that there's no room for these lighthearted stories. And that's really what I wanted to get across in Ayesha At Last. Muslims can fall in love too. We need our romance stories, need our love stories, just as much as any other community. Maybe even more, because we've had so much darkness heaped on us by the actions of some people who have done extremely violent things. But also [by the] decisions of other people who have portrayed Muslims, over and over again, as violent extremists.-----Thank you for being here, Austen Connection friends.Let us know: Are you a reader of romance, Muslim romance, and retellings? What are your favorites? Did this conversation inspire you to think differently about contemporary romance, romcoms, and the stories we tell, and what it all has to do with Jane Austen? Have you read Ayesha At Last and/or Hana Khan Carries On? And/or, what are your recommendations for the Thanksgiving holiday, if that's a thing where you live? And if not, let us know your weekend reading plans? Comment below!As always, you can find us right here, on Twitter at @AustenConnect, and on Facebook and Insta at @austenconnection.Meanwhile, have a beautiful weekend. Wishing you all the light, joy, and romance,Plain JaneCool links:Here's more on Uzma Jalaluddin's books and bio at her website: https://uzmajalaluddin.com/Here is another Muslim writer whom Ms. Jalaluddin recommends: Ayisha Malik: https://www.ayishamalik.com/bioAnd check out the Muslim comedy and romance in the work of Huda Fahmy, also recommended by Ms. Jalaluddin: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Yes-Im-Hot-in-This/Huda-Fahmy/9781507209349Here's Uzma Jalaluddin's Toronto Star column about writers of color breaking through: https://www.thestar.com/life/parent/opinion/2021/09/21/as-a-parent-teacher-and-writer-i-urge-creators-of-colour-to-raise-their-voices-in-the-arts.htmlAnd this Toronto Star column is on romance and writing the light rather than the darkness: https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/opinion/2021/04/05/dis-romance-all-you-like-i-choose-to-write-happy-funny-stories-as-a-light-against-the-darkness.htmlIf you enjoyed this post and conversation, feel free to share it! Get full access to The Austen Connection at austenconnection.substack.com/subscribe

Hello friends,Today we bring a new podcast episode and conversation that I think you will love. It's with Damianne Scott, an educator, writer and speaker in the Jane Austen community - she teaches literature at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College and Cincinnati State University. And she's the host of the Facebook page, Black Girl Loves Jane. She's also working on a very intriguing project right now - rewriting the story of Jane Austen's Persuasion into the setting of an African-American megachurch. In her own book project, Persuaded, due out from Meryton Press next year, Ms. Scott makes Anne Elliot a PK - or preacher's kid. And as Dr. Cornell West has pointed out, in a legendary talk at the JASNA Annual General Meeting of 2012, Jane Austen was also a PK, or preacher's kid. This is a world that Damianne Scott knows well, and it's a world I also am not unfamiliar with - I also, as it happens, am a PK - so I really enjoyed this conversation. Ms. Scott says that as a student of 19th century literature, which she has loved since middle school, she often has found herself the only Black student in the room. So she appreciates the nontraditional casting of shows like Bridgerton, but has also watched and addressed the backlash that has arisen from that production and from the PBS series Sanditon.An article Damianne Scott contributed to JASNA.org, or the Jane Austen Society of North America online, addressed the pineapple controversy surrounding the Sanditon series. A chorus of viewers felt that using the pineapple emoji as a fan symbol for the show was insensitive to the cultural weight and the connotations of colonialism and of the slave trade carried by that symbol. Damianne Scott weighed in, and she weighs in here, in this conversation, saying she hopes people and the community of Austen lovers and fans will continue to grow and understand that - as she says - Austen doesn't want to be put up on a pedestal: Jane Austen, she says, wants to be among the people. I love that.Press play here (above) to stream this from any device, or find the Austen Connection podcast on Spotify or Apple. Enjoy!And for you word lovers, here's an excerpt from our conversation:Plain JaneLet me talk a little bit first about Persuasion. So why do you love the story of Persuasion?Damianne ScottWell, I love the story of Persuasion … It was my first Jane Austen novel that I read in college. And the first one I did a paper on. So that was one reason why I loved it. Second, I do enjoy the movie, the one that [from 1995], with Ciarán Hinds, the BBC, is one of my favorite adaptations. And then I like it now. Because Anne Elliot is very adaptable for any woman today, who is over a certain age who is not married, who has no children, and who has come to bear the responsibility  - either willingly or unwillingly - to be the caregiver of their parents, and their finances, the dependable child in the household. And I find that very relatable to me, because I am not married, have no children, and have become the pseudo-caregiver [and] financial-responsibility person, in my family. So it speaks to me. The other thing is, I think that Persuasion in itself, again, is very adaptable to what I'm doing now with my rewriting of it and modernizing it. Anne - she's always criticized by her father for the way she looks. There's that famous scene where, you know, she's talking, and he's like, “Oh, your skin looks better today, you changed cold creams”! And he talks about the naval officers, and he talks about Admiral Croft and how, you know, he looks pretty well for somebody who was in the Navy!Plain Jane  And it's very funny, like, it's a source of humor, but also it's just, you feel Anne's pain. I mean, any woman in the world feels Anne's pain with all of this. We're also laughing at it.Damianne Scott Because he's totally ridiculous! Like, really. So it is very funny. And so my adaptation- it's a little focused on physicality. So my Anne does not necessarily have a skin issue, but she has a weight issue. And then, because she's in this community, a small community - well, not a small community, but anyone who knows about African-American megachurches, which is where my book takes place ... people can still pretty much know your business, because it's a small community.Plain Jane So let me - I have to ask you more about this: I want you to talk about this retelling, but I will just say, I grew up going to Black churches. And I grew up going to megachurches. But never a Black megachurch.Damianne Scott Well, there actually are not that many.Plain Jane Well, I grew up in a sort of evangelical background. So I didn't love the megachurches … So can we just pause for a second and you tell me: Why that setting? Why the Black megachurch?Damianne Scott Well, because I'm familiar with it. It is, you know, my world. I go to church now. And so, though my church was not a megachurch, in the terms of how we think of it, when I was growing up, it had about 500 members. And at that time, so those were like mid-'80s, that was a big number of people. And then my pastor, he was the head bishop of the state of Ohio, for our denomination. So I'm very used to that church, where everybody knows your business. And you know what it means to be a preacher's kid, so I wasn't a preacher's kid. But I know what it means to be a preacher's kid and deacon's kid, someone-of-authority's kid, everybody talking about what's going on and everybody else. It is a village mentality. Plain JaneYeah, that's so true. And it is like a village. You were starting to say everybody knows each other's business. It's like the “four and twenty country families.” But I love what you're sayingd: there's a hierarchy, it can be a very wonderful, close community. It can also be a fairly oppressive community. And nobody shows this better than Jane Austen, right? I just have to say, Dami, so you were going to megachurches in the ‘80s; I remember going to the megachurches in the ‘80s. And this was in Atlanta. I would not have stepped foot in there without, like, [full] makeup, hair …!Damianne ScottOh yeah. Plain JaneSo, whole thing. And I kind of resented that, you know? So what was your experience? What  has been your experience in the church?Damianne ScottSo … I think I am not critiquing the church as a whole, pastors as a whole, as [much as] this particular pastor. But yeah … I came from a denomination for a long time [where] you didn't wear makeup, so that wasn't a problem. But you know, we were dressed, you didn't go to church and pants … you put together your hair, no jeans, there was no such thing as wearing jeans to church, on a Sunday morning. … if you're a woman, you wear a skirt. … I didn't resent it, because that's all I knew. I didn't feel oppressed by it. Especially when I was young. My friends were there, my family was there. That's where I participated in things, where I cultivated my speaking abilities or my writing abilities. So it didn't find it oppressive, to me, growing up at all. And then as I grew up, something altered and changed. I did start seeing things a little different, because then I realized, you know, church is also business. And so sometimes, it's all business, just like with all denominations … preaching one thing and doing the other. And so there is a little greed aspect to some churches - not all, of course. So … with this hierarchy, there is a power trip … Because of how the system was set up in America, systematically, the racism, the church was the only place where Black people could have clout. So if you are a pastor, or deacon, if you're a missionary, you have power. You have clout. What you say, goes. And so if you are the child of a pastor, a bishop, or whatever, people are looking at you. They expect you to act a certain way, be a certain way, do things a certain way, because you are not only reflective of Christ … but you're also reflected on that power structure. If you do something, you are challenging that power structure, that whole thing might fall down. And so Sir Walter, my character, he is a pastor of a megachurch. But he also has some gambling issues, and some spending habit issues. And he puts his church into debt, where he's almost losing the church and the upper limits of his power and his clout in the community. And then he has these children and one of them … is fiscally responsible and capable and efficient and knows how to run things. He doesn't see her value because she doesn't represent what he thinks a daughter should look like. Physically. … She's someone with intelligence. She's kind of challenging his wisdom … his thought process. And so that makes it really Austen. Even though it's 2021.Plain Jane That's so great. Everything you're describing is this character - that's so Austen, a character, a strong woman, a smart woman who's undermined and undervalued, and just how frustrating that can be. But Jane Austen just shows people how to go forward. So that's kind of what appeals to you about the story of Persuasion? You mentioned a teacher encouraged you, in your Facebook Live [event]. You called it an adult fairy tale, in a way because she does persevere, doesn't she? And is gracious. How does she get by? How does she survive? And why is this an adult fairy tale?Damianne Scott Well, I guess the fairy tale part is because there is no, necessarily, fairy godmother, or magic  - just that Anne kind of realizes that what she wants is important and valued. That she should move on. I mean, the only reason why she doesn't marry Wentworth in the first place is because Lady Russell and her family, and the small community that she's involved in, is like, “No, he has no money. He doesn't represent what we represent, being gentry … You can't marry him, he has no money.”And of course, during that time, having money was the most important thing - you're not marrying somebody necessarily for love, you're marrying somebody for connections, growing the family, making sure you're not starving, especially if you're a woman. So all your sisters are not starving. So this is what you're getting married for, you're marrying for the benefit of society, and particularly your small society. And so what Anne does is realize at the end: “Bump that! Now I'm wanting to do what I want to do, where my voice is heard, and I'm gonna marry this man that I love, that I probably [should have]  married eight years ago, but I listened to y'all.”And so I think the magic is that she realizes her own worth. And that there was somebody who already recognized it and she kind of let it slip away. And she gets a second chance to rectify it, which is something most of us do not get - that second chance to rectify a decision that we made incorrectly. And I think that's why it's a fairy tale.Plain Jane All right! … Do you find yourself having to explain to people about why you love Jane Austen, that it is about hardship? It is about endurance and survival? It's not just about finding somebody to, you know, to marry and carry you off. That it is about what it is like to get through life with responsibility, and how to do it graciously, and how to, hopefully, how to find happiness?Damianne Scott … My friends, they just don't understand that at all. They think of Austen as, you know: the dresses, the balls, the bonnets. And it is, let's not get it twisted: It's part of it. That is the appeal for people who read it today or look at the movies today. It's the romance. Because I mean … all the major novels that she wrote, all the main characters get her man, they get married. We may not see the marriage, but we know they get married. So for some people, that is the appeal of Austen, that is what they look at for Austen. That's why they read Austen and that's all they want. And that's fine. Others, like myself, I'm interested in also the other themes that are going on, the nuances. Because the nuances of the dance, [for instance]: Well, why are they doing that particular dance? Why can't women inherit from their fathers? Why [is it] they cannot work? What was going around in England at that time, to make it the way it is? That is what interests me also. And so, in the community itself … my biggest push is just trying to get them to understand not only the historical, which many of them already do, because that's why they're Janeites, and they really dive in and they're really scholarly about it, where I'm not as scholarly about a lot of the issues. But my biggest question is just to see that it's text, it's ideas that are open to all people. And... that it can be open to other people who might not necessarily have been in the thought of, or the mind of, Austen when she wrote those novels.Plain JaneWell I love that. And I want to hear more about that, Dami. So you started the Facebook page Black Girl Loves Jane to basically do what? To kind of put a stamp on that?Damianne Scott Yeah, well it initially started as something really for me to do, where I could share Jane Austen's quotes and wits and books and all that. That was in August of 2018. So it's pretty new. Just something to, like, put a quote of the day or a photo of the week. And then I would share something that was happening in my life that that wisdom either expresses or answers for. And then my goal was to then have other people share their experience that is similar to the quote that I placed out there today. And I call it Black Girl Loves Jane because I'm a Black girl! So I was a Black girl who loves Jane, which is an oddity! It's not completely, like, not heard of - you know, I've met and seen other women of color who love Jane. But for my circle, I am the odd man out and in college, here I am trying to get my master's degree in English, and I am the only African American who's in a Victorian class or British Romantic class, you know, trying to read Shelley and Austen and talk about these things. And I'm the only one there. And so what Anne does, is realize at the end: “Bump that! Now I'm wanting to do what I want to do, where my voice is heard, and I'm gonna marry this man that I love, that I probably [should have]  married eight years ago, but I listened to y'all.”So that's how it started. And I just like classics in general. So it's not just Austen. I love Hardy. I was presented to Hardy when I was 14 in school. So Hardy was who I started off with, because my teacher did not believe that I would like Austen. Because he was like, “Oh, you like Hardy? You're not going to like Austen because Austen is happy and they get married.”  … We never could read anything modern. So every book we read in high school from ninth to 12th grade when we had to do a book report was a classic. You know, everything else was Hardy, or Eliot, or Dickens, or Austen. So I was like, “Okay, this is a world I'm not used to. I've never been introduced to these classics before. So here we go.”My first book I read was Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Like, “This is what's happening in England in the early 1900s?! Okay! My goodness!” I read Hardy, and then [continued in] high school, college. And then it has eventually over time has evolved to just trying to make the case, in whatever small way I can, that Austen is not just for Caucasian people, that Austen is not just for people from Britain, that there are other cultures that can benefit from the lessons of Austen, or from other classic literature as well. Because anything I deem to be classic is something that is relatable to everyone, if you're willing to do the teaching to make it relatable. I think part of the issue, especially in high schools today, and maybe in some colleges … is that we teach these books, particularly these books that are in the canon, as unrelatable to anyone who's not white, or young … or whatever, and we tell you, “You're never going to understand it.” And really what it is, is the teachers are going to have to figure out a way to make it relatable and teachable for whatever generation they are presented with. And so part of my reason for writing my version Persuaded, part of my reason for why I read other modernization versions of Austen's novels and other classic novels, is because I have this hope. I want to have this hope that it's reachable even to this generation, and that if we don't learn how to make it reachable to the next generation, they're going to die. These classics are not going to be classics anymore. They're not going to want to teach Austen, or Dickens, or Toni Morrison. They're not going to want to teach them anymore because they won't feel they are relevant today. And so, books like, hopefully books like mine, but also Pride by Ibi Zoboi is giving that attention, making that way. And also Unmarriageable [by Soniah Kamal] which I just read too, is making that way, that it is so relatable! These are my people! Even if it is, you know, 1789 when it's written, and I'm reading it in 2021. These are my people. This is what's going on in my life in my world, too. And she's speaking to me. And so that is what my goal is.Plain JaneAwesome! Listeners can't hear that I'm snapping at Dami. I love it. It just makes Austen so much richer, when people realize [that], like I feel like they have already with Shakespeare. So I think you're - hopefully, you're right, and I am too, because I have the same hope -  that it's just a matter of imagination. It's just a matter of changing the way we see it, changing the way we teach it.Damianne ScottI always try to - even with my students,  because I teach English Composition, but I have taught upper-level classes as well about literature - and I'm always trying to get my students to understand that period just means it happened at a certain period of time. And the themes and experiences that we are having are the same themes and experiences that they'll be having 75 years from now, and the way that they were having 75 years ago, if you get through all that superficial stuff, right? Yes, you might have to practice some of the language because Shakespeare is no easy man, by any means! But the themes, the lessons, really what he was saying is just as modern today as anything else.Plain JaneLet me ask you, Dami, what would you like to see in any kind of Persuasion adaptation? What do you think makes it work for today? Because there are also two films coming out.Damianne Scott There is, and one I'm really excited about because one is going to be a color blind or nontraditional Persuasion, what they're calling nontraditional casting, where the Wentworth character is going to be played by a person of color.Plain Jane Oh, is it Cosmo Jarvis? Yes. Okay.Damianne ScottYes. So he's, going to be playing Wentworth. And then Mr. Golding, Henry Golding, who I adore, he is playing Mr. Elliot. Cousin Elliot, I guess. … So, it's nontraditional casting. And so that's what I was excited about, that we had that happening in the era of course of Bridgerton, which I also loved. But [it] also got a lot of flack. And those who are Jane Austen fanatics did not appreciate Bridgerton, some have not appreciated casting for this new Persuasion. And it's because of the nontraditional casting. So for the past six months or so, I've been doing some talks and things like that. I did one for “Race and the Regency” for Jane Austen & Co., where I'm pushing this idea: “Why not? Black people were there. Why are we acting like Black people are not there? There are people of color there, there are people from South Asia, India, were there during that time.” So I don't understand why people get upset about this notion … as if Austen was this historical document that could not be altered. It's fiction! It's fiction! Everything in it is fiction. I guess in England during that time, there is the wars going on at the time. All that has happened. I know this is happening, but again, it's still a fictionalized world, some of the cities don't even exist, really, in England. And these are fictionalized stories. And so the hullabaloo about Bridgerton, particularly, it's the greatest thing right now, is somewhat disconcerting to me. Which is why I make Black Girl Loves Jane, because I just don't understand it. That icing out of cultures who are sometimes forced to read Austen, but they can't be in Austen? They can't be in an Austen film, but you're gonna make them read it as part of the literary canon that you have in school, but then they can't be in it? Doesn't make sense to me. [P]art of my reason for why I read other modernization versions of Austen's novels and other classic novels, is because I have this hope: I want to have this hope that it's reachable even to this generation.So I'm really excited about that. And I'm looking for not only for Persuasion to do it, but I'm looking forward to a time where it's not a big deal. So that is what I'm looking forward to, not only with Persuasion, but all novels and really, you know, all classic novels. Where it's just not a big deal. And I don't always go into it, you know, by any means, looking at any kind of film or book. I'm like, ‘Oh, there's no Black people in it. So I'm not gonna read it, or people of color.' That's not me at all. But I do when I'm looking at it. And as I get more past the the surface stuff, but to the actual discussions about modernization and race and class, there's discussions to be had: … “What is wrong with this scene? Or, what's wrong with this theme that is being carried out through this period? Why was it established? What's wrong with it? And how have we rectified it? Or have we rectified it in 21st century England or America? Are there still class systems that's going on? Are they still based on race? Are they still based on it?” I am just saying that, like you said, the new normal has to come about where it's not such a big deal. I don't know if you know that I published an article in JASNA. Plain Jane Thank you for  reminding me - Yes, I did.Damianne Scott Well, one of the things I mentioned is, and that's part of the problem, I said, is that there is this need to hold on very tightly -  for many British citizens, but it's the same here in America as well - to this history that is not accurate. So this why people get upset with Bridgerton, or nontraditional casting in some Dickens movies, is because they're holding on to this idea of what they believe they are. And even though their history was told to them incorrectly … the challenge of it that's coming about in these last few years, it's very disconcerting for people. So this is why people have a cow. When you're going to have a multiethnic person play Wentworth, this is why people are upset that you have as the high royal in a drama going on in 1830 Regency be a Black queen. This is why people had a cow when the Jane Austen museum said, “Oh, we're going to establish and talk about how Jane lived during this time slavery,” and people have a cow about it.It's because it is challenging an idea and a history that is so ingrained in them, that, “Who will I be, if I am not the owner of Shakespeare or Austen or the Bible, or, for us in America, this great southern tradition? Who are we, if I don't have this? Or if you're telling me that I was wrong, or that my ancestors were wrong for what they did back then. And so therefore, you're now deeming me to be wrong.”And that is part of what solutions are going to have to come about. Because the change is coming. But how can we bring people along? Because it's scary to say to somebody, “Okay, you don't own Austen. I know you're Caucasian, I know you're a woman, and I know you might just want to tackle the stories of love and romance in these novels. But there's something else going on. Jane lived in a time of extreme upheaval. And if you say you love Austen, then you have to love all Austen. And some of what's was going on with Austen is not pretty.” Not necessarily with her, because she was a supporter of abolition, but what was going on around her was not pretty. And it's not all about the balls and the dresses, and that's scary for people. And so my hope is also that we can just have these dialogues where people don't feel like we're attacking or trying to take away something from them, but instead, understand and come to realize that we're trying to add to something that they already have.Plain Jane What would you like to see in our conversations going forward to be more equitable and inclusive? In our conversations about Jane Austen?Damianne Scott I guess what I really would like to see in the future is just this real, true understanding that people of color are not trying to - like what we've just discussed - invade people's space. What we're trying to do is say that we were always there. And that we want to be seen. And that we want to be accepted. Now, does that mean you have to go back and change 250 years of history? Well, no. You can never change that slavery, you can never change that there was a feudal system, and there were the landed gentry - you can't change it. But the idea that we are … this exclusive club, that is a problem. Because the change is coming. But how can we bring people along? Because it's scary to say to somebody, “Okay, you don't own Austen. I know you're Caucasian, I know you're a woman, and I know you might just want to tackle the stories of love and romance in these novels. But there's something else going on. Jane lived in a time of extreme upheaval. And if you say you love Austen, then you have to love all Austen.”So, hopefully, the future is that when we have these discussions, and have these conferences and have these things, that we are interested in the needle-point, and the dancing, and the foods that Austen ate; but we're also interested in the history of what was going on with the slave trade that was happening at that time. And we're also interested in how they were treating women. And we're also interested in talking about what they were doing with the tea that they were taking from India. And then we're also interested in, in all these other maybe somewhat earthy discussions about Austen and that are just as prevalently produced and advertised and populated and attended, as the latest discussion about how to make a bonnet. I am for you learning how to make a bonnet. I want to learn how to make a bonnet too. But I also want you to know that often, we put Austen on a pedestal. Austen does not want to be on the pedestal. We put her on there. And we make her so unreachable: She can only be talking about “this,” she can only be presented “this way.” As long as we keep Austen on that pedestal. she's going to die. Her words, her wisdom, is going to die. Because the one thing my generation - Generation X, Y or millennial - we're not looking for people to put on pedestals. We want people who want to be among the people. And Austen is among the people if you let her be. -------Thank you for being here, friends. Please talk back to us - let us know your thoughts on what Damianne Scott says here about how we read, and teach, and talk about Austen, and how we can make Austen more relatable. Teachers and professors, how do you introduce Jane Austen's stories to your classes today? Do you find that it's helpful to, as Damianne Scott says, consciously think about how to engage young, diverse readers with the classics and to help them see, as she says so beautifully, that Austen is speaking to all of us? And is among us? Let us know! It would be fascinating to continue this discussion! You can comment, here:Meanwhile, watch for more conversations coming up, including new podcast conversations with Ayesha at Last author Uzma Jalaluddin, Island Queen author Vanessa Riley, and Harvard professor and long-time New Yorker writer Louis Menand on “How to Misread Jane Austen.”  Thanks to you for listening, engaging, and making this the wonderful community and conversation that is growing and thriving. Invite a book-loving friend to join us! Have a wonderful week. You can stay in touch with us on Twitter at @AustenConnect, on Facebook and Instagram at @austenconnection, or you can simply reply/comment here. Stay well and stay in touch,Yours affectionately,Plain Jane Cool linksHere's Damianne Scott's piece for JASNA.org on PBS's Sanditon series and the pineapple controversy: https://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/volume-41-no-2/scott/Here's our piece on Damianne Scott and BGLJ Facebook page in the Christian Science Monitor: https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Arts/2021/0917/Is-Persuasion-the-Jane-Austen-story-we-all-need-right-nowMeryton Press - where Damianne Scott's retelling Persuaded is due for release next year: https://merytonpress.com/More on the upcoming Persuasion film adaptation, starring Cosmo Jarvis, Dakota Johnson and Henry Golding: https://deadline.com/2021/05/dakota-johnson-netflix-henry-golding-persuasion-cosmo-jarvis-suki-waterhouse-richard-e-grant-nikki-amuka-bird-1234754639/*This post was updated to reflect that Damianne Scott also teaches at Cincinnati State University. Get full access to The Austen Connection at austenconnection.substack.com/subscribe

2021 has been kind of a mess, honestly, and Sarah hasn't been reading as much as usual, because *waves hands at the world.* But Hana Khan Carries On is a total delight and exactly the book she needed this year, so we're reading it with you! We'll talk about romcoms, authorial voice, podcasting heroines, about how much we enjoy heroes who deserve a bit of cold storage, about writing contemporaries that reflect the time we live in, and about first person narration and why it works really well when it works really well. Also, Sarah tries to get herself invited to hang out with Uzma Jalaluddin and tries to trademark a Ted Lasso reference all in one episode. It's rough out here. Leave her alone.Get ready for more trailblazers and our Best of 2021 episode this month! Our next read-alongs will be the Tiffany Reisz Men at Work series, which is three holiday themed category romances. Read one or all of them: Her Halloween Treat, Her Naughty Holiday and One Hot December.Show NotesThis week's book is Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin. Her first novel was Ayesha At Last, which was a Pride & Prejudice retelling. Mindy Kaling is adapting Hana Khan for Amazon. The Folio Society has a new version of Georgette Heyer's Venetia. The introduction is by Stephen Fry, who is a real champion of poetry, including a great book about the joys of reading and writing poetry called The Ode Less Travelled.The dating app invented for Ted Lasso is called Bantr. If you can't identify different voices, maybe it's because we all have podcast voice. In the ReadsRomance family, we call Toronto Clean Chicago….because well, I think it explains itself. The Golden Crescent might be an invented neighborhood for this book, but it seems similar to Toronto's Crescent Town. If you'd like more information about what it means when food or a restaurant is Halal. Perhaps you do not know about biryani, an Indian delicacy, or poutine, a Canadian one.Jen was right about the meaning of the word pillory.This book has aspects of the 1998 movie You've Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, which had a terrible ending. From what we can tell, the NPR of Canada is CBC radio.In some recent books, we get an unflinching portrayals of toxic white women on page---characters like Marissa in this book, or Misty in American Dreamer. Adriana Herrera was a guest on last year for an interstitial about the immigrant experience.Our next read-alongs will be the Tiffany Reisz Men at Work series, which is three books. Read one or read them all: Her Halloween Treat, Her Naughty Holiday, and One Hot December.

This week, we're thrilled to have Rebecca Romney with us! Rebecca is a rare books dealer and the woman behind The Romance Novel in English, a 100-lot collection of rare romance novels and other romance-adjacent paraphernalia. We had a great time talking to her about the collection, her motivation to develop it, her hopes for its future at the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana, and about how romance lovers can start thinking about collecting books! We hope you love this one as much as we did!Our next read along is Uzma Jalaluddin's Hana Khan Carries On. Find it at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie. Show NotesWelcome Rebecca Romney. She is the cofounder of Type Punch Matrix, a rare books firm based in Washington DC. She started out working at Bauman Rare Books in Las Vegas. You can also watch her in action from old appearances on Pawn Stars where she routinely broke people's hearts about the values of their rare books.Rebecca recently put together a collection that was purchased by the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana called The Romance Novel in English: A Survey in English 1769-1999. You can follow Lilly Librarian Rebecca on twitter; they sound like a great resource for romance, and for planning a visit! On the episode, we extensively discuss some of the general themes and specific items in the catalogue. Two authors that didn't make it into the catalogue because Rebecca couldn't find copies: Eliza Haywoodand Evelina by Frances Burney.The Elizabeth Lowell book about a gold dealer in Las Vegas is called Running Scared and is part of the Rarities Unlimited series. Gold books aren't really a thing, but gold leaf and illumiated manuscripts are. Here's an explainer on The Gutenberg Bible and a clip from Pawn Stars where an individual leaf is available, and here is a page from a 2021 auction site selling a leaf. But remember that bookmaking in China was far more advanced at that time. Or maybe you'd be interested in knowing more about Newton's Principia. Although I couldn't find an article about the history of Jewish booksellers, I did find an interview with Adam Kirsch, an author who wrote a book called The People and the Books, about the importance of books to Jewish people throughout history. On our Trailblazers episode with Radclyffe, she talked about the importance of queer bookstores. What is the difference between ARCs and first editions? Time to check and see if your copy of The Flame and the Flower to see if it's a first edition.Jen called it a garage sale and Sarah called it a Tag sale, which is exactly right considering where they grew up. Foxing isn't as sexy as you'd think when we're talking about rare books.The 2019 Rita ceremony included a video of romance firsts.In John Markert's Publishing Romance: The History of an Industry, 1940s to the Present, he discusses a series called Adam that failed because they were romances only from the hero's point of view.Time to shake all your Sweet Valley High books out of your closet, fellow Gen-Xers.

We're talking minotaurs and spiders and orcs and gargoyles…it's Monster Romance week at Fated Mates! Jenny Nordbak of the Wicked Wallflowers and Bonkers Romance podcast joins us to talk about this explosive, extremely popular genre that both intrigues and perplexes us. Our next read along is Uzma Jalaluddin's Hana Khan Carries On. Find it at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie. This episode sponsored by Radish: Bottomless content; one cute app. Visit radish.social/fatedmates for 24 free coins and to read your first Radish story.Show NotesWelcome Jenny Nordbak. Her first romance, His Leading Lady, was just released, (Jen did the final developmental edit!) and she just started the Bonkers Romance podcast with Melody from the Heaving Bosoms podcast. Check it out!Although there is lots of crossover with paranormal or alien, Jenny defines monsters as: creatures who don't shift into humans, you'd definitely scream if you saw them running down the street, but human enough to be able to bang. Although no one mentioned on the episode, here is the single greatest monster explanation ever seen on twitter. The cartoon Sarah refered to is called The Harkness Test, and it's a reference to Dr. Who. More about what it means to go into the Amazon dungeon--this, of course, is related to attempts to deplatform sex everywhere on the internet. Besialisty cartoon that Sarah is going to look for Baby Jenny imprinted on Fantasia, specifically the centaurs and Chernabog. She also loved the Gargoyles TV show and the orcs in Lord of the Rings.What is Knotting?Here's listener Alyssa Long's terrific thread about monsters and disability. Often, writers use ableist tropes in their monster-creation, and Alyssa's thread talks about how and why this is harmful. (Any mistakes in the summarizing of this thread are Jen's!) In that thread, Alyssa shared a great article about ableism in the horror genre, and although we loved The Witcher, it reinforced some of the most common problems with putting disabilities on the screen.Sarah is hosting a writing workship to kick of NaNo--register here!

Dear Jane friends,It's Tuesday, and not our usual Thursday, because we have something special for you: Today, we are kicking off a second season of the podcast! We have some amazing conversations lined up for you, dropping on Thursdays over the next few weeks - so make sure you are signed up for this newsletter, and each conversation will drop right into your inbox. You can listen right here (click Play!) or find the podcast on Spotify or Apple.And today, we interrupt our October month of horrors for a romantic, soulful interlude … about Jane Austen's most romantic, soulful story.We're talking with playwright Sarah Rose Kearns, an actor, Janeite, and playwright whose adaptation of Persuasion is showing in an Off-Broadway production through the end of the month.We recently spoke with Kearns for this Christian Science Monitor piece, and when we caught up with her by Zoom on a recent Saturday night she told us she feels like Anne Elliot has been her imaginary friend for half her life.Can we relate, friends?It seems to me like many of us feel - like biographer Claire Tomalin told us she does - that Austen's characters are indeed our intimate friends. And have been for a very long time, if we're lucky.As a writer, Sarah Rose Kearns has an answer to why this is: She attributes this intimacy partly to Austen's literary technique known as “free indirect discourse,” which takes us right into the mind of the character. My very favorite part of this conversation might be the part about the music included in Kearns's stage play - including the folk song “The Saucy Sailor,” featuring in this episode a version of the ditty by Canadian folk trio The Wailin' Jennys. Kearns also talked about some of our favorite themes of Jane Austen that come out strong in Persuasion - such as the feeling not only of longing and loss, but also of displacement, abandonment, and what Kearns called “the quest for a stable home.” Enjoy this Austen Connection podcast episode with Sarah Rose Kearns on taking Jane Austen's most heartbreaking, soulful, most painful and pining, and deeply romantic story - and putting all that on stage. And, friends, tell us: What is your favorite theme in the story of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth? What is your favorite part of the novel - is it The Letter? Do you feel that Anne Elliot is the perfect imaginary friend? And what did you think of The Wailin Jennys' version of “The Saucy Sailor” featured in this episode?Does anyone out there plan to be at the play, at Bedlam theater in NYC? The Austen Connection will be there on Friday, Oct. 22, for the TalkBack - come by and see us! And, watch for brand new Season 2 podcast episodes, dropping on Thursdays! Coming up: author Vanessa Riley about her latest book Island Queen, author Uzma Jalaluddin on her Pride and Prejudice retelling Ayesha at Last, Damianne Scott on her own retelling of Persuasion and her popular Facebook page “Black Girl Loves Jane,” and next week a special Halloween edition that continues our October month of Horrors, with Professor Maria De Blassey, about ordinary gothic, everyday magic, romance, and what it all has to do with Jane Austen - that's next Thursday! Sign up for the newsletter, and all these conversations arrive right to your inbox. And meanwhile, friends, stay healthy, warm, and happy, and stay in touch with us at the Austen Connection.Yours truly,Plain Jane If you liked this post, feel free to share it, friend! Cool Links:The Persuasion play website: https://www.janeaustenspersuasion.com/The current Bedlam production website: https://bedlam.org/persuasion/Jocelyn Harris's book A Revolution Almost Beyond Expression: Jane Austen's ‘Persuasion': https://www.jocelynharris.co.nz/work/revolution-almost-beyond-expression-jane-austens-persuasion/Paula Byrne's The Genius of Jane Austen, about Jane Austen and the theater: https://paulabyrne.com/books/Here's the Andrew Davies talk at Chapman University that is mentioned in this conversation: Get full access to The Austen Connection at austenconnection.substack.com/subscribe

This week, we're continuing our Trailblazer episodes with Radclyffe—author of lesbian romances and founder of the LGBTQIA+ publisher, Bold Strokes Books. We talk about her path to romance as a reader and an author, and a publisher, about the early days of queer romance, about the importance of independent booksellers to the queer community, and about how readers find themselves in books.Thank you to Radclyffe for taking the time to talk to us, and share her story. S04.05: Radclyffe: A Trailblazer EpisodeOur next read along is Uzma Jalaluddin's Hana Kahn Carries On. Find it at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie. This episode sponsored by Radish: Bottomless content; one cute app. Visit radish.social/fatedmates for 24 free coins and to read your first Radish story.Show NotesWelcome Radclyffe, romance author and founder of Bold Strokes Books. The internet archive has preserved her fanfiction site. Bookstores mentioned: Giovanni's Room in Philadelphia, Womancrafts in Provincetown, and an article about the current state of Queer bookstores in America. Publishing and Distributors Radclyffe mentioned: Naiad Press, founded by Barbara Greer, Sarah Aldridge, and Muriel Crawford; Regal Crest Enterprises is now Flashpoint Publications; Fawcett; Bella Booksfounded by Linda Hill; and Alyson Books.Awards mentioned: Lambda Literary Awards, and the RWA Prism awardFurther Reading: Creating a Literary Culture: A Short, Selective, and Incomplete History of LGBT Publishing, Part I, Part 2, and Part 3 by Michael Neva in the LARB,

Celebrity chef Jacques Pépin dishes on his latest cookbook, Quick & Simple, and the evolution of food television. Writer Uzma Jalaluddin discusses her second novel, Hana Khan Carries On, and how she put a different spin on the rom-com format. Dolly Parton recounts the stories behind her best-loved songs, including Jolene, I Will Always Love You and Coat of Many Colors.

At some point, we were going to have to talk about fossils, right? Ravished is the bluestocking book that started it all for Sarah, and an absolute classic for Jen. On the reread, we absolutely loved it, which just goes to show that Amanda Quick (aka Jayne Ann Krentz) is a total legend. We'll talk about the appeal of big heroes who know what they want and just go for it, about how difficult it is to write two people who genuinely enjoy each other's company from the jump, about how awesome it is when a heroine is totally down with doing it in a cave, and about the broad appeal of greatcoats. Our next read along is Uzma Jalaluddin's Hana Kahn Carries On. Find it at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie. Sponsored by Radish: Bottomless content; one cute app. Visit radish.social/fatedmates for 24 free coins and to read your first Radish story.Show NotesRavished was originally published in 1992 by Jayne Ann Krenz, who has a lot of pen names, including Jayne Taylor, Jayne Bentley, Stephanie James and Amanda Glass. Now she publishes under 3 names: Jayne Ann Krenz (contemporary), Jayne Castle (PNR), and Amanda Quick (historical). She has said, “I am often asked why I use a variety of pen names. The answer is that this way readers always know which of my three worlds they will be entering when they pick up one of my books.”The Bluestocking archetype is about a woman who is interested in science and learning in her own right, and is a reference to the Bluestocking Society, which was founded in the 1750s by Elizabeth Montagu and Elizabeth Vesey. Some hallmarks of a gothic novel are “the discovery of mysterious elements of antiquity” and also handsome men in great coats. All about the waltz and why it was so scandalous. Jen's thread about fossils, which are just a McGuffin. Maybe you are more interested than Jen and would like to learn about how to fake a fossil. Author Vanessa Riley is committed to reviving bananas regency names for men. In A Duke, The Lady, and a Baby, the hero's name is Busick.

The episode in which you learn the name to that instrument you hear in all the TV shows but had no idea what it was.  Also, Nathan and Darby talk about Libraries of Things that lend unexpected items. We talk about: Seed libraries at Nanaimo North, Creativity Commons (Nanaimo),Courtenay, and Gabriola branches Human libraries Tool libraries located on Gabriola Island and in Courtenay Musical instrument libraries Puzzle lending shhh....  Nanaimo North has a semi-secret puzzle lending library  (and we're not sure why we're whispering!) What would YOU want to see as a library of things? Cake pans? Keytars? Kombucha SCOBYs? Email us at MeetMeInTheStacks@virl.bc.ca and let us know.  You can visit the Creativity Commons branch to try their Theremin too!  Casey jumps through the sliding glass door to talk Canadian Muslim novels and authors, and hopes these books are mirrors for some of you, dear listeners! Hanna Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin, like the 90s movie You've Got Mail We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib here is her amazing photo project called Just Me and Allah make sure you tell Casey if it made you cry in the one part too! Saints and Misfits by S.K. Ali YA contemporary title, but worth reading! The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan, the first in a Mystery series with Detectives Esa Khattak and Rachel Ghetty Seven by Farzana Doctor Any others we should know about? 

She's moving to New York City to pursue her lifelong dream to become an illustrator, but she doesn't just want to get a job. She's also on a mission to make enough money to go on a night out, buy a whole bottle of wine (not just a glass) and, most importantly of all, to fall in love. But as she grows accustomed to the hustle and bustle of city life - with the help of her new roommate Mary Grace, and life-long friend, Densua - she begins to hear the voices of her ancestors in her mind. . . Could understanding her family's past hold the key to Zainab's future? A charming romcom about one woman learning to fall in love in one of the most magical cities on earth, Ayesha Harruna Attah's novel is perfect for fans of Uzma Jalaluddin, Kiley Reid and Angela Makholwa. ___________________________________

Metro Morning's food guide Suresh Doss visited three Indigenous chefs in the GTHA who are serving up a bit of their culture with their creative dishes; The annual Honey Jam Showcase has helped launched the careers of artists like Nelly Furtado, Haviah Mighty, Jully Black and Melanie Fiona. 13-year-old Azalyne was chosen to perform in this year's showcase and is hoping for some of the same magic; The Perseid meteor shower is underway and right now is the best time to view it. Astronomer Mike Fich from the University of Waterloo offers tips on the best way to do some stargazing; Mike Shoreman will be making a three day journey from Rochester, New York, back to Toronto's Ashbridges Bay; Uzma Jalaluddin made quite the splash on the literary scene with her two novels. 'Hana Khan Carries On' and 'Ayesha At Last." Both Romantic comedies about Muslim characters in Toronto. And now one of her books - "Hana Khan Carries On" - will be adapted into a feature film for Amazon Studios by powerhouse actor, writer, producer Mindy Kaling.

Abandoning books that aren't working for you is a glorious gift you can give yourself! The Jennys chat about DNFing books and review Uzma Jalaluddin's new novel Hana Khan Carries On.

In the second episode of our "BookSwap!" summer series, Trudy gets Emma to read "Ayesha at Last" by Uzma Jalaluddin, a wonderful modern day twist on Pride and Prejudice set in a Muslim community in Toronto. Emma gets Trudy to read The Natural Daughter, a 1799 novel by Mary Robinson, which is ... a buck-wild ride from start to finish. Plus, we talk about Jane Austen an awful lot for a podcast where we don't even read one of her books. Find the blog post with links to almost everything we talked about in this episode here: https://shelfesteem2017.wordpress.com/2021/06/06/episode-38-bookswap-2-one-of-these-books-is-bonkers/

In today's Books with Hooks segment, Carly and CeCe discuss leaning into unlikable characters but how to make them relatable; avoiding info dumps, especially in dialogue; starting at the right place; and trusting both yourself and your reader.  After which, Bianca chats with Uzma Jalaluddin, author of Hana Khan Carries On about writing rom coms; the tropes and conventions of the genre; choosing the best setting for your story; tackling important themes in all genres; the three-act structure; and keeping your secondary characters in check.

There are just so many great books by authors of Asian descent that we are back to suggest more titles for adults. Books mentioned in this episode: Markswoman by Rati Mehrotra, How to Pronounce Knife: Stories by Souvankham Thammavongsa, Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee, Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin, and Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life by Ali Wong. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/keepitfictional/message

Canadian country star Tenille Townes talks about her Juno nomination, making it in the U.S. and her new album, The Lemonade Stand. Toronto writer Uzma Jalaluddin discusses her second novel, Hana Khan Carries On, and tells us how she puts a different spin on the rom-com format. Canadian photographer David McMillan talks about taking more than 20 trips inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone to capture images of a city frozen in time.

Bestselling author Ausma Zehanat Khan hosts a conversation with Uzma Jalaluddin about her acclaimed new YA novel, Hana Khan Carries On. From the author of Ayesha at Last comes a sparkling new rom-com set in two competing halal restaurants. Sales are slow at Three Sisters Biryani Poutine, the only halal restaurant in the close-knit Golden Crescent neighbourhood. Hana waitresses there part time, but what she really wants is to tell stories on the radio. If she can just outshine her fellow intern at the city radio station, she may have a chance at landing a job. In the meantime, Hana pours her thoughts and dreams into a podcast, where she forms a lively relationship with one of her listeners. But soon she'll need all the support she can get: a new competing restaurant, a more upscale halal place, is about to open in the Golden Crescent, threatening Three Sisters. When her mysterious aunt and her teenage cousin arrive from India for a surprise visit, they draw Hana into a long-buried family secret. A hate-motivated attack on their neighbourhood complicates the situation further, as does Hana's growing attraction for Aydin, the young owner of the rival restaurant—who might not be a complete stranger after all. Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books. The Ottawa International Writers Festival is supported by generous individuals like you. Please consider subscribing to our newsletter and making a donation to support our programming and children's literacy initiatives . Presented in partnership with the Ottawa Public Library.

Acclaimed author Uzma Jalaludin is on a roll! Her first book, 'Ayesha at Last' was a runaway hit and has now been optioned for Hollywood. This 'Muslim edit' of Pride and Prejudice explores the love lives of second generation Toronto Muslims. Her new book 'Hana Khan Carries On' is a retelling of the cult romcom 'You've Got Mail'. Tune in to hear this fun author where she explains the 'Rishta' system of finding a spouse- "the most awkward blind date ever". You will also enjoy listening about her lovable characters and why she believes representation matters so much for her community. Do send in your comments or feedback about this episode by tweeting them to @acrosshertable or e-mailing them at feedback@acrosshertable.com  or send us a voice message at http://www.anchor.fm/acrosshertable/message Don't forget to follow Across Her Table on Instagram @acrosshertable (https://www.instagram.com/acrosshertable) Music credit: Oh My - Patrick Patrikios , Santa Teresa - Patiño

In this episode, I'm chatting about the audiobooks I listened to in March and the new releases in April that I can recommend and am looking forward to. Find the audiobooks mentioned in this episode here on my blog: https://lovelyaudiobooks.info/audiobook-recommendations-april-2021/ And here is a link to the book list for Romance Books with Great Disability Representation I mention: https://lovelyaudiobooks.info/romance-books-about-disability/ And in case you haven't heard of Whispersync deals before, here is my blog post explaining how you can get your audiobooks cheaper with Whispersync: https://lovelyaudiobooks.info/amazon-whispersync-deals-cheaper-audiobooks/ Audio excerpted courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio from Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin, read by Ulka Simone Mohanty.

This week, the Book Bistro crew looks ahead to April releases. Join Meka, Stacy, Shannon, Melissa, Sara, and Natalia as they discuss some of their most anticipated new books. Titles mentioned are: Mary Burton, Near You (Montana #2) Jennifer McMahon, The Drowning Kind Vanessa Riley, An Earl, the Girl, and a Toddler (Rogues and Remarkable Women #2) Sally Hepworth, The Good Sister Rosie Danan, The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate #2) Brittney Morris, The Cost of Knowing Ciannon Smart, Witches Steeped in Gold (Witches Steeped in Gold #1) Naima Simone, The Road to Rose Bend (Rose Bend #1) June Hur, The Forest of Stolen Girls Lisa Regan, Hush Little Girl (Detective Josie Quinn #11) Beth O'Leary, The Road Trip Kyla Stone, Edge of Valor (Edge of #7) Akemi Dawn Bowman, The Infinity Courts (The Infinity Courts #1) J.R. Ward, Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood #19) Uzma Jalaluddin, Hana Khan Carries On Joshilyn Jackson, Mother May I Sally Thorne, Second First Impressions Abby Jimenez, Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3) You can always contact the Book Bistro team by searching @BookBistroPodcast on facebook, or visiting: https://www.facebook.com/BookBistroPodcast/ You can also send an email to: TheBookBistroPodcast@gmail.com For more information on the podcast and the team behind it, please visit: http://anchor.fm/book-bistro.

Shauna and Rebecca are happy to have Tara (@onabranchknitsandread) from Ontario join them to discuss the first book in their Love & Laughter series.  Shauna and Tara offer up their own questions, while Rebecca cheats and uses the ones at the end of the e-book.  How many maple leafs will each one assign to Ayesha at Last? 

Welcome to Friends to Lovers! On the inaugural episode of the first season, Mackenzie and Lily dive into romances that won't make your pearl-clutching grandma break out in hives from the utter steaminess and sexual tension.Major episode timestamps: Introduction (0:00), Housekeeping (2:00), Introduction to Main Discussion (11:22), Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin (13:44), Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes (15:47), The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali (18:36), Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton (22:04), You Me Everything by Catherine Isaac (24:55), Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center (29:18), The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (31:42), Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay (31:42), The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (31:42), After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid (31:42), Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid (31:42), One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid (31:42), What Else We're Reading (34:19), Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall (34:19), and Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier (34:19).You can get full show notes and episode transcriptions on the Bad Bitch Book Club website: http://badbitchbookclub.com/podcast.Give us a five-star rating wherever you get your podcasts, and say hi to us at @F2LPodcast on Twitter and Instagram. You can also join the private F2L Facebook group.If you want to support Bad Bitch Book Club's initiatives (including this podcast), become a Patreon member: https://www.patreon.com/badbitchbookclub.Buy all books mentioned on Friends to Lovers: https://bookshop.org/lists/friends-to-lovers-podcast.Friends to Lovers is a Bad Bitch Book Club podcast hosted by BBBC founder Mackenzie Newcomb and writer, editor, and bestie Lily Herman. Each week, they use books as a jumping off point to talk about sex, relationships, dating, love, romance, and more.Podcast logo by MKW Creative Co. (https://mkwcreative.co/) and music by Eliza Rose Vera (http://www.elizarosevera.com).

Mawwiage is what bwings us togewah today! Sort of. Lydia and Tay delve into The Viscount Who Loved Me’s adorable moments and Anthony’s good qualities, body image, overcoming trauma, Newton the corgi and the Regina George of 1814. Do houses have lobbies? We have no clue. Coming in two weeks, An Offer from a Gentleman (swoon)!Reading recommendations:Siblings series: [contemporary] Penny Reid’s “Winston Brothers” seriesAlisha Rai’s "Forbidden Hearts" seriesNora Roberts’ “Cordina” series[historical] Lisa Kleypas’ “Hathaways” seriesJulie Anne Long’s “Pennyroyal Green” seriesChristine Feehan’s “Drake Sisters” seriesBeverly Jenkins’ seriesEnemies to Lovers trope: [historical] Sherry Thomas’s Beguiling the Beauty (Fitzhugh trilogy) (2012)Kristen Callihan’s “Darkest London” series (2012)[contemporary] Sonali Dev’s Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors (2019)Uzma Jalaluddin’s Ayesha At Last (2019)Casey McQuiston’s Red, White, & Royal Blue (2019)[graphic novel/fantasy] Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona (2015) [YA/fantasy] Holly Black’s “The Folk of the Air” series (2018) For family!Sherry Thomas, The Luckiest Lady in London (2013)Mentioned in this episode:“Mean Girls” (2004)“The Princess Bride” (1987)“10 Things I Hate About You” (1999)Much Ado About Nothing (1598)Loyalty Bookstore’s “Date Night with Alyssa Cole”: https://www.loyaltybookstores.com/event/2020-07“Brothers Bloom” (2008)“How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days” (2003)“She’s the Man” (2006)Thanks for listening! You can find us on Instagram and Facebook @callingcardspod, on Twitter @CardsCalling, on our website, callingcards.wixsite.com/callingcardspod, or by emailing us at callingcardspod@gmail.com. Original music by PASTACAT, @pastacatmusic on Instagram.

Ellen and Mom discuss the modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice, Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin. Plus, we discuss other great Jane Austen retellings and adaptations. Come hang out with us! Twitter/Instagram: @notyourmomsromFacebook Group: Not Your Mom's Facebook GroupEmail: notyourmomsromancebookclub@gmail.comNot Your Mom's Romance Book Club is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at Frolic.media/podcasts!

Join with me and my awesome recurring guest, Stephanie Price, as we discuss Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalaluddin. This has been dubbed a "modern-day Muslim Pride and Prejudice" so Austen fans will thoroughly enjoy it. But as Stephanie points out, it definitely goes in different directions than you expect and is not a strict re-telling. So even if you have never read Pride and Prejudice, it's still a great book that stands on its own. See why we gave this book a 4 out of 5 thumbs up and our cleanliness ratings for the book.Follow me on instagram @sugarplumbooks and Stephanie @because.my.mother.read. Make a comment there and tell us if you read this book and what you thought of it! Make sure to leave me a review on the apple podcasts app, or any app that you listen to this podcast. Thanks to those friends who have already shared the podcast!! It means the WORLD to me! As Holbrook Jackson said, "Never put off till tomorrow the book you can read today."Now go stick your nose in a book!Song: Move on by SmarTune

As you know, we at Whoa!mance possess an undying reverence for yr grrl Jane (see JANEuary if you don’t), and we’re smitten with this own voices retelling of P&P. This week, Morgan and Isabeau escape to Toronto in Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalaluddin, a modern Muslim twist on the Austen classic. Ayesha is an aspiring poet struggling to repay loans to her wealthy uncle, when her life collides with Khalid. While their styles and worldviews clash, there’s an unavoidable tug each feels toward the other. Can traditional and modern interpretations of Islam find a common ground of titilation? Are office dress codes tools of negation and oppression? What is the value of 100 marriage proposals if none begets a bride? This rendition may keep it sweet, but the stakes are high y’all. Whoa!mance is a part of the Frolic Podcast Network.

In discussing chapters 42-59, we mentioned  "The Card Turner," a YA novel by Louis Sachar. Also, giant squid are scary, Fedallah's whaleboat crew are eerie, and and Melville is not subtle. Palate cleansers: Jennie - "Ayesha At Last" by Uzma Jalaluddin and "The Lady and the Highwayman" by Sarah M. Eden Alex - "Storm of Locusts" by Rebecca Roanhorse Pete - "Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions From a Writing Life" by Kim Addonizio    

Uzma Jalaluddin is my guest for this episode! Uzma is an English teacher in Toronto, a parent of two boys, a columnist for the Toronto star with a regular parenting feature called Samosas and Maple Syrup, and a novelist with her debut work, Ayesha At Last, just having dropped in the US. If there’s anything I’ve learned from the initial handful of conversations making up this show, it’s that you pursue creativity best when it’s something you believe in with your whole heart. Where your heart goes, so goes your interest, passion, and time. Uzma first started work on Ayesha At Last in 2007. That’s a dozen years working on getting this story right, working around kids and a job about which she’s passionate, working through a dozen or so drafts, and a lot of patience. And editing. The passion, care, attention, and heart comes through in the writing of Ayesha At Last. It’s a love story perfect for the summer, with pages that fly by as the novel’s characters work through their arcs, both interwoven and distinct. Ayesha At Last is a modern remix on Pride and Prejudice, but – like me – you don’t need to have read Pride and Prejudice to get a lot out of it. The template extracted from Jane Austen’s seminal story is apt and works really well for the environment of Ayesha At Last. Uzma’s main characters, Khalid Mirza and Ayesha Shamsi, are observant Muslims living and breathing in the tight-knit Muslim community of the east end of Toronto. They wear traditional clothing and wrestle with arranged marriage, the trappings of faith, and honoring family, but they also hit those universal coming-of-age notes of simply learning who they are as people, accepting themselves, and figuring out how to love. #VerseShow comprises conversations that give voice to creators, their process, their struggles, and the celebrations of their work. It's an interview podcast with a bend toward curiosity about the creative process.

On this journey I'm joined by Safiya: Do we read certain book genres more critically than others? Workplace struggles: a Muslim experience. When a character's transformation makes us go "hmm..."!   Book in focus: Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin (Canada).   Find Safiya on Instagram and Twitter: @jscherfi   Share your opinions, suggestions, counter-arguments - on Instagram and Facebook: @booknomadpodcast - by email: booknomadpodcast@gmail.com - on the website: www.booknomad.weebly.com

In episode twenty-four, we discuss This Little Art by Kate Briggs.What is it to translate another writer’s words? What is to consume a translation? Taking as her starting point her own translations work, Briggs explores these questions and so much more in her genre-bending novel length essay This Little Art.Witty and thoughtful and with as many questions as answers, This Little Art is an original and layered discussion of the art of translation and perhaps of what it means to read and to write, too.Show NotesKate Briggs’s This Little Art by Carlos Fonseca: https://bombmagazine.org/articles/kate-briggss-this-little-art/Kate Briggs, “This Little Art”: https://translationista.com/2018/07/kate-briggs-this-little-art.htmlDid He Really Say That? On the Perils and Pitfalls of Translation: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/books/review/kate-briggs-this-little-art.htmlHow Do We Judge Translations?: https://lithub.com/how-do-we-judge-translations/WAITING TRANSLATIONS: A CONVERSATION WITH KATE BRIGGS: http://www.musicandliterature.org/features/2017/11/20/a-conversation-with-kate-briggsWhy Translation Deserves Scrutiny: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/23/why-translation-deserves-scrutiny/Changing, Adjusting, Expanding: Conversation On The Art Of Translation With Author & Translator Kate Briggs: https://www.bookculture.com/blog/2018/08/21/changing-adjusting-expanding-conversation-art-translation-author-translator-kateRecommendations:Fi:The First Time Podcast: https://thefirsttimepodcast.com/Total Eclipse by Annie DillardNeve:Princess Cyd: https://www.netflix.com/au/title/80201497Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin: https://www.booktopia.com.au/ayesha-at-last-uzma-jalaluddin/prod9781443455848.htmlMrs Martin's Incomparable Adventure by Courtney Milan: https://www.amazon.com.au/Mrs-Martins-Incomparable-Adventure-Worth-ebook/dp/B07P4DPLX7Can't Escape Love by Alyssa Cole: https://www.booktopia.com.au/ebooks/can-t-escape-love-alyssa-cole/prod9780062931887.htmlKirby:Bark by Lorrie Moore: https://www.booktopia.com.au/bark-lorrie-moore/prod9780307740861.htmlThe Library Book by Susan Orlean: https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-library-book-susan-orlean/prod9781782392262.htmlSpotify Guilty Pleasures playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX4pUKG1kS0AcContact Us:Twitter: @litcanonballInstagram: @literarycanonballFind us on Facebook at Literary Canon BallEmail: literarycanonball@gmail.com

1. Uzma Jalaluddin - author of Ayesha at Last

Valentine’s Day is almost here-- let’s talk about our favorite bookish couples. Who are our BrOTPs, NOTPs, and OTPs of the literary world? Listen to this episode to find out!Books mentioned in this episode:Ayesha at Last by Uzma JalaluddinThe Final Empire by Brandon SandersonMen We Reaped by Jesmyn WardA great interview with Uzma Jalaluddin on Ayesha at LastMore on the origin of the term ‘OTP’ and its current usage:knowyourmeme.com/memes/otpfanlore.org/wiki/One_True_Pairingbustle.com/articles/79776-what-does-otp-mean-a-primer-for-this-very-important-acronymOur theme music is Never Long (Time Goes By) from the album Escapism by Sahara Sky.Get in touch with us: Website: Unassignedreadingpod.comTwitter: @UnassignedPodInsta: UnassignedReading

Let's be honest. For most of modern storytelling history, white men held the pen and the power. Because they did, the stories we devoured in fiction and journalism came from that perspective. The Internet & social media – for all their problems – has also opened the flood gates to new voices in storytelling. It's never been easier to find the full rainbow of lenses on story. But, are the established media ecosystem players doing enough to shift to a new normal? On this episode of the Middle, the business of diversity in storytelling. Host Sophie Nadeau is joined by Uzma Jalaluddin, columnist and author of ‘Ayesha at Last,' and Andree Lau, the Editor-in-Chief of HuffPost Canada.If you'd like to continue the conversation you can find all our speakers on Twitter. Sophie is @sophienadeau, Uzma is @UzmaWrites, Andree is @alau2."In any movement, you're always going to have a pushback, because people who are entrenched in their power and in their privilege are obviously not going to be happy when they're told to share." - Uzma

Chris has a Star Trek sex dream, Luke gets a haircut, Lauren swears (a lot), and much more. Recorded live at the Royal Cinema in Toronto in partnership with The Word on the Street Festival. Show notesSupport GRTTWaK. Become a patron.Photos from our Toronto eventFeatured authors from The Word on the Street 2018: Uzma Jalaluddin, Hana Shafi, Lauren ToyotaRate or review GRTTWaK in iTunesJoin the email newsletterUpcoming live eventsMusic by Podington Bear and LullatoneClosing theme is “Oh Dear Diary” by SloanTwitterInstagramFacebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's Bumper November Bonus Episode, Emilie Sommer of East City Bookshop kicks us off with suggested comp titles. After which, Bianca is joined by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley, co-authors of Three Holidays and a Wedding. They discuss the differences in approach in writing a collaborative project rather than a solo one; the benefits of writing genre-fiction when it comes to creating an outline, and the importance of an outline in a collaborative process; the idea of tackling hard subjects, but with the promise of a 'happily ever after'; and the shift in the tone and subject matter of romance novels and rom-coms in recent times. CeCe then chats with her client, Dr. Tracy Dalgleish, about her book, I Didn't Sign Up for This. They also discuss how they met and decided to work together; why Tracy wrote this book the way she did; how we learn through stories and how psychological tools can be useful whenwriting fiction; the parallels between relationship challenges and writing; the emotional challenges that come with the intention of being traditionally published; practicing self-care while going through the phases of writing and publishing; and there's a special giveaway for listeners!Finally, in the Q&A segment, Carly and CeCe answer all yourburning questions!Find us on our socials:Twitter: @TSNOTYAW @BiancaM_author @carlywatters @ceciliaclyraInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_shit_about_writing/https://www.instagram.com/biancamarais_author/https://www.instagram.com/carlywatters/ https://www.instagram.com/cece_lyra_agent/Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/TSNOTYAWWebsites: www.theshitaboutwriting.com, www.biancamarais.com, www.carlywatters.com and www.cecilialyra.comBookshop.org affiliate page: https://bookshop.org/shop/theshitnoonetellsyouaboutwritingTo connect with Emilie Sommer go to https://www.instagram.com/emiliegsommer/ and you can find East City Bookshop at https://www.instagram.com/eastcitybookshop/More information about Uzma can be found at: https://uzmajalaluddin.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/uzmajalaluddin/More information about Marissa can be found at: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/authors/2242840/marissa-stapley and https://www.instagram.com/marissastapley/More information about Dr. Tracy can be found at: https://www.drtracyd.com/. She's on Instagram @drtracyd, andFacebook @DrTracyD.Our Sponsors:* Check out Factor 75 and use my code tsnotyaw50 for a great deal: https://www.factor75.com/* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.com/Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands