We are, at almost every point of our day, immersed in cultural diversity: faces, clothes, smells, attitudes, values, traditions, behaviours, beliefs, rituals.
That’s when this warm feeling buzzes through you and you smile to yourself, knowing God’s watching you, knowing that He knows you’re trying to be strong to please Him.
And it’s when I’m standing there this morning, in my PJs and a hijab, next to my mum and my dad, kneeling before God, that I feel a strange sense of calm. I feel like nothing can hurt me, and nothing else matters.
I want to be with one person in my life. I want to know that the guy I spend the rest of my life with is the first person I share something so intimate and exciting with.
It is time Australian Muslims stop being treated as negotiable citizens in their own country. It is time people stop ‘tolerating’ us, presuming some right to decide if we have a place in our own home.
Most Muslim women know it is fear and curiosity that cause people to stare. They know it is ignorance and stereotypes that cause people to suppose that a piece of material covering the hair strips a woman of the ability to speak English, pursue a career, work a remote control.
My family are observant Muslims, but I’ve come to the faith through an intellectual conviction, and that’s something that they’ve taught me. It’s never been forced upon me. They’ve given me a very strong identity as an Australian Muslim.
One of the first serious attempts I made to write a novel was when I was in Grade 6 and I had read ‘Matilda.’ I wrote my own version and my teacher had it bound and permitted me to read it to the class – cementing my love of reading, writing and Roald Dahl!
Yes, Simone, he is mentally unstable for being attracted to you. call the men in white suits.
But persistent name calling? that prolongs hurt. It stretches out. Each nasty word stretches the rubber band further away until finally, one day, it snaps back at you with maximum impact.
When it comes to the hijab – why to wear it, whether to wear it, how to wear it – there is theology and then there is practice, and there is huge diversity in both.
If I like a book, I tend to read the author’s entire collection. But I choose mainly through personal recommendations, general word of mouth and book reviews.
I’ve always loved writing, and the impulse for me is storytelling. I don’t sit down and think: ‘What political message can I sell?’ I love the creativity of it.
I do most of my reading on the train ride to and from work. But I always have a book in my handbag so that I can read at any time, anywhere.
I’ve been writing stories since I was a kid. I love writing stories.
In a multicultural, diverse society there are countless ways in which people negotiate the everyday lived experience and reality of diversity.
The easiest way for readers to connect with characters and feel sympathy is to make the character entertaining, sympathetic and likeable.
When you exist in the centre of a debate, as a topic, a hypothesis – otherised and stigmatised – you become the prop in a proposition.
You should take notes whenever you hear interesting or original language.
I wasn’t rebellious. Other friends had far stricter parents and where there wasn’t a relationship of respect and communication, they were usually the opposite; kids go to the other extreme.