Meet S.K Ali, The Mind Behind ‘Love From Mecca To Medina’!

Keshav Kant:

Okay, so you’ve written several books and Love From Mecca to Medina is just around the corner. How are you feeling?

S.K Ali:

I’m feeling like I’m just getting started. I’ve wanted to be an author since I was very young. It happened later in life for me, so I feel like I’m at the beginning of a journey.

Keshav Kant: 

Absolutely, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Matthew Cherry; he said something during that interview that sort of changed my perspective on working as a creative. “It takes a lot of years to become an overnight success.”

S.K Ali:

That is such a phenomenal quote! You know, building up the size, the courage, the life experiences, and the resilience to take setbacks and rejections. You have to be in a mental space to be able to handle that and keep moving. Personally, it took me this long because I also had to understand some things about the process and put away some of my idealism. Now I know the ins and outs of this industry. So yeah, I love that statement; it perfectly captures what a lot of us go through.

Keshav Kant: 

It really is!

S.K Ali:

At the same time, I’ve also shifted my thinking because I was a lot about art. But I also shifted my thinking to understanding that this is a business; it’s a corporate world. 

Keshav Kant: 

Absolutely. 

S.K Ali:

Hashtags like ‘Publishing Paid Me’ revealed how much injustice there is. So it’s a lot of juggling the art with making moves you need to make to ensure that you survive in this industry and that other marginalized creatives also survive. It takes understanding that we have to support each other, connect with each other, tell each other truths, even harsh truths, and help each other out.

Keshav Kant:

That’s something that made me really happy when I joined the industry, seeing how authors of colour tend to find each other. I have a couple of friends who are published authors and some who are going to be published soon, and everyone sort of knows each other. You’ll see them interacting, whether it’s on social media or at each other’s events. So it’s always wonderful to see that even in these microcosms, we find we find and create a community for ourselves.

And I’m glad you brought that up because you talk about systemic injustice and the systems at play in many of your books. Was that something that you knew from the start that you wanted to talk about in Mecca To Medina or something that came to you while you flesh the story out?

S.K Ali  

So it’s really like capturing a moment of time. I’m a mother of young people trying to set out in their lives, and I know some of the struggles that are happening right now. The job situation and the ways people carve careers for themselves it’s different than when I grew up with. So it’s more about topics and themes I wanted to explore came from understanding that young people struggle with things as they are nowadays. I want to always make sure that, as much as possible, I have the pulse on what’s going on. I always want to write reality as it is and not sugarcoat anything, but I still want to weave hope in. 

So I try hard to find that voice, though I address topics that might be often painful. I always try to make sure there’s a sense of hope. When you close my book, you realize that this is not like the moment in time when you find yourself in whatever you’re grappling with; there’s more.

Keshav Kant:

It does show in Mecca To Medina because, as you said, you want to weave hope throughout your books. And I think that’s important when we talk about lived experiences. It’s not all “ Oh; we’re marginalized, so everything is very hard”. It’s about we keep going and create these works of art, create these spaces for ourselves, regardless of circumstance.

S.K Ali: 

Right? We have a legacy of resilience. Our ancestors have strived and kept going. So I think that is something to draw upon because it’s very easy to get cowed by everything. I think growing up with a lot of Islamophobia and without social media, like nowadays with social media, there was such heavy gatekeeping. If you wanted to say something, you just had to say it in your small circle of your friends. You couldn’t add your voice to the wider conversations because your voice was kept out.

Now at this time, when there are just so many ways for people to speak out and have their own stories, I find it like a very dynamic time to tell our stories. When I was younger, I felt almost cowed down because it was like you couldn’t lift your head because there was so much negativity. Negativity around my identity as a Muslim woman now feels like a different time, and I hope it helps young people, you know, speak up, mourn, and feel that sense of, like, okay, I can tell the truth of my own life.

Keshav Kant  

I completely agree. It’s something that a lot of us talk about in our circles, and now it’s a larger conversation now Twitter and TikTok. I made several TikToks on Ms. Marvel and Partition because I was able to get early screeners, and it has been so wonderful getting to see the conversation around it.

S.K Ali  

Oh, that’s amazing! So, you got to see a sneak peek before it came out?

Keshav Kant  

Yeah, that’s the best part of running Off Colour. We get access to things like this. So it makes the work worth it. But while we’re on the topic because it is something we asked Iman Vellani during our Ms. Marvel interview, I do want to check in with you; how are you taking care of yourself? 

Because a lot of the material you’re talking about in your books including Love From Mecca To Medina is very difficult. You’re talking about Islamophobia, dealing with systematic oppression, and ableism, so I want to make sure that you are taking care of yourself.

S.K Ali  

Oh, thank you! You know, I recognize the privilege that I have to actually work full-time as a writer. When I started, I was really pushing myself. But now I’m in a space where I give myself time to go to the gym. I give myself time to just do other things to fill, not just for my creative well, but honouring other parts of my life. 

I’m really glad that you asked that question because that is so true. Every creative must have a point when they realize they can drive themselves so hard. Yes, as marginalized people, we often talk about things that drain us, and it takes a lot out of us. Often I cry when I’m writing my stories, there are always points when I’m typing and crying, and I’m not the only writer who admits to that. But also because we are processing our traumas as well through writing. So I remember that, and it also helps me to take care of myself because it feels like I’m doing it for a better future, which makes me feel happy. It gives me a purpose and makes me feel like continuing with the work.

Keshav Kant:  

You’re absolutely right, it has to come from a place of joy and love, and I love to see that you’re taking care of yourself.

S.K Ali:

Thank you, you know, I try my best to turn down my social media use and just listen to something spiritual. That kind of like reminds me of something other than being fixated on material things. I’ll just paint while I’m listening to podcasts. I’ll just create stuff for myself and let it not have like a purpose in my work. I’m better at recognizing signs of when I’m getting burnout. And that’s really important for any creative to recognize when you’re just feeling down, you’re feeling stalled. Immediately, make a shift, say I need more time and just take the reins there, you know?

Keshav Kant:

No, I completely agree, and I think that that’s a really important conversation that we need to start having a little bit more openly. This is why I love when people talk about how they care for themselves, whether it’s through music, art, or spirituality. It’s important that we create a space where we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable, safely, because safely is the operative word there.

And that’s also one thing I’d really love about in Love From Mecca To Medina because you allow all of your characters to be fully realized people. Everyone involved is very aware of their own limitations and how they need to, like, go about navigating the world.

Like Adam has MS, and during his umrah, he uses assistive devices. He uses a motorized wheelchair at one point and his cane at another, and it’s good to see that. That he’s like, no, I’m going to still live my best life, my full life, but I’m going to do it in a way that’s accessible to me that agrees with the law. The same goes for both Zayn and Adam expressing their desires for romance and physical intimacy with each other within the boundaries of what they find acceptable. It’s kind of like a joking point while they’re on this trip that we can’t be alone, even though we’re married at this point. I love that you allow them to have that goofiness and that intimate moment with each other.

S.K Ali:

I had to do that because I know that people don’t often write about after the happily ever after in romance novels. It’s like, why do we need to go on? I was a little bit worried about that. I was like, no, I write reality, and the reality is, like, just because you got, you know, you’re, it’s not really a happily ever after, right? The reality is on trips like umrah, like hajj, you’re not really with each other. These are real kinds of dilemmas people have, so it adds to that sense of romance. So that worked out in my favour when I chose that the setting of the book would be Mecca and Medina, that it allowed that element of them to be together despite the natural circumstances of such trips.

Keshav Kant:

And you did it spectacularly! We have to wrap up, so this is a two-parter, but I like to as the last question. What do you want readers to know when they dive into Love From Mecca to Medina? And can you share anything about any future projects you have coming down the pipeline?

S.K Ali:  

When they dive into this book, I’d like readers to know that they’ll go on a journey. It’ll feel like a physical journey, you know, to the two of the holiest places to Muslims, Mecca and Medina. It also is a journey within because I spend equal time on the spiritual aspects of our souls, which I don’t often discuss in my books. Next, working on another genre, I have mostly written contemporary fiction. I’m working on a speculative duology, and hopefully, the news will be out about that soon. Then I have some picture books coming out, as well as a middle-grade novel coming out that I’ve written with three other friends.

Keshav Kant  

Okay, now I’m excited. As soon as we hop off this, I’m going to email Alex at Simon & Schuster and be like, hey, just want to let you know I’m interested!

S.K Ali  

Oh gosh, it’s not with Simon!

Keshav Kant  

Oh? Well, in that case, I’ll just have to let know; refresh The StoryGraph every couple of weeks make sure that I’m getting those updates but thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it!

S.K Ali  

Thank you so much, Keshav! Yeah, it has been so amazing talking to you.

Keshav Kant  

It’s my pleasure! Thank you again; I’m going to let you go before we get stuck doing the Desi thing of saying bye for 15 mins.