Yes. That’s baby Samira, slightly before the earth cooled. Apparently Bombay, India was a lot less crowded back then and color photography was just a twinkle in my parents eyes. Everything else you need to know about me is written below in third-person. Super awkward to write when you’re writing about yourself, but my agent told me that’s how it’s done. So let it be written. (Yeah, that’s an homage to Yul Brynner, not Metallica. Fight me.)
SAMIRA AHMED was born in Bombay, India, and grew up in Batavia, Illinois, in a house that smelled like fried onions, spices, and potpourri. She currently resides in the Midwest. She’s lived in Vermont, New York City, and Kauai, where she spent a year searching for the perfect mango.
A graduate of the University of Chicago, she taught high school English for seven years, worked to create over 70 small high schools in New York City, and fought to secure billions of additional dollars to fairly fund public schools throughout New York State. She’s appeared in the New York Times, New York Daily News, Fox News, NBC, NY1, NPR, and on BBC Radio.
Her creative non-fiction and poetry has appeared in Jaggery Lit, Entropy, the Fem, Claudius Speaks and the Spine Out novelists series. Her debut novel, LOVE, HATE & OTHER FILTERS is out January 16, 2018 from SoHo Teen.
Her writing is represented by Eric Smith of P.S. Literary.
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