The Interview: Sahar Mustafah

What do you do when you're stuck.

Hello to new subscribers and welcome to Sitting in Silence, a newsletter for writers, readers, and thinkers. The Interview is a new feature for the newsletter. I love talking to writers about inspiration, craft, and life. They never disappoint. So, from time to time, you’ll find these intimate and enlightening conversations right here. This issue’s conversation is with a favorite writer of mine. I adore her work. The great Sahar Mustafah.

Sahar Mustafah is the author of two books: The Beauty of Your Face and Code of the West. She’s also a friend. We first met as students at the VONA Conference in Miami. This was in 2016 on the eve of the publication of Code. In conversation, I admired her empathy and insight, both of which are hallmarks of her work.

Maurice: What are your earliest memories of reading or writing stories?

Sahar: My earliest memory of reading on my own is bringing home a copy of a child's illustrated version of Treasure Island from my first-grade classroom library. It was an incredible treat--I chose it myself and took very close care of it over the weekend. In my early childhood education, I received most books directly from my teachers as my immigrant parents lacked the resources to nurture my voracious passion for reading. My sisters and I were sent to Catholic School in the absence of Islamic-American institutions in the early 1980's, and I devoured the Old Testament stories, which both terrified and thrilled me. I began writing around the age of 10 and saved my allowance for weeks for a Smith Corona electric typewriter in a lovely sky-blue finish. I composed many beginnings of stories :).

Maurice: How thrilling! Those typewriters were wonderful machines, and sky blue is the perfect color. What were those early beginnings of stories like? Were they adventures like Treasure Island? A response to religious texts?

Sahar: I imagined animal and nature characters (e.g. a lonely tree) in search of belonging or friendship. I suspect now that it stemmed from a subconscious desire to fit it. I had friends and was well-liked by my peers, but I didn't always feel like I belonged.

Maurice: The Beauty of Your Face is such a lovingly perceptive book. Afaf feels like a friend I knew in another life. How did you know you wanted to write the book? How did she become the central character, and tell us about your journey to becoming a published author?

Sahar: I love to hear this expressed about Afaf: she's like a friend whose life you want to continue to be a part of once the book ends. This is the highest praise I've received from readers.

The seed of the book is the actual hate-murders of three young Muslim Americans in Chapel Hill, NC, Yusor Abu-Salha, her husband Deah Shaddy Barakat, and her sister Rezan Abul-Salha. They were shot in cold blood by their white neighbor. As so many Americans across the nation, I was deeply unsettled by the event which for me was different from the kind of violence I've come to fear as a teacher: a young student bringing a gun to school. The shootings in Chapel Hill are of a different brand of violence, steeped in hate and fearmongering. I wanted to confront the effects of Islamophobia on our communities since 9/11. But I realized, as with most of the stories we tell as writers, I needed to travel back in time to explore the origin story of Afaf. A preliminary draft focused on multiple Muslim American characters which I soon found did not quite tell the story well. After putting the draft down for a few months, I pondered the most powerful vessel to carry this story and Afaf came to me. She would embody a lifetime of experiences and not be reduced to a victim by the shooter. Alternately, I was interested in exploring how the shooter arrives at this critical moment of entering the Islamic girls’ school and going on a killing rampage. What were the forces and choices that brought him to this point in time? I suppose that is what's always interested me--trying to understand where we come from and how that indelibly impacts the present.

It was years before I claimed to be a writer. Like many second-generation children, I didn't deviate from a very traditional expectation of success: financial security, a marriage, and children. I'd love to write, but never conceived of it as an actual profession until several years into my teaching career. After discovering Naomi Shihab Nye's work, I was pulled to write stories of my own Palestinian American experience. When it became clear that Arab American voices existed on the shelf (they were very limited when I was a college student), I felt empowered. I started publishing short stories very sparingly in a few anthologies and lit mags. Very soon the need for a community and a space to help me thrive intensified. I decided to pursue an MFA at Columbia College where, for the first time, I could be meaningfully read by others and read others to expand my craft, as well as find good mentors to guide me. It gradually opened the door to more publishing resources and opportunities. My thesis collection, Code of the West, fortunately didn't end up in the proverbial bottom drawer, but would be my first published book in 2017, from which several stories earned awards and accolades. Soon after, I began writing my novel The Beauty of Your Face.

Maurice: Can you talk about the craft of your writing? It's a big thing to write and publish a book, let alone two. What do you think about when you're writing? And how did your writing evolve from early grad school through the books? You'll tell us it became very easy, right?

Sahar: If it's supposed to be easier, I haven't conquered it yet! I'm finding with every book, it's a different experience. I begin a new journal with every project which sets the tone of a new journey, fills me with excitement and a deep promise I'm making to myself and my art. My habits might have improved--being disciplined even if I don't feel like writing, committing to the work of research--but the rendering of story has varied from novel to novel. I'd say the short story collection experience is pretty consistent perhaps due to the nature of short fiction. I've had to tackle my second novel in a different way than the first as its narrative structure and number of characters are different from how I told The Beauty of Your Face.  Ultimately, this has offered me some relief and perspective: I can't expect the same rewards and challenges in every book I write.

When I was in grad school, I tended to write for a [white] mainstream audience because I was thinking practically about the publishing world and white gatekeeping which has certainly evolved over the last decade, though there's still much work to do.

With my first novel, I was writing for my immediate communities--Arab and Muslim Americans--and that actually proved more nerve-wracking. I felt a tremendous responsibility to "get it right" as the voices from these communities have been marginalized in literature. As soon as I committed to this audience, I knew I would have to combat the gatekeepers who'd want to package and pigeonhole me.

In terms of content, I became more keenly aware of stereotypes I might be inflating if I wasn't careful. Even the decision to stop italicizing Arabic words and colloquialisms was a major one--I wasn't going to keep othering the other. It seems like such a small thing but it meant a great deal to readers who felt centered and seen and not engaging in something that felt like an encyclopedia entry depicting scenes from their own living world.

Every story I've told to date is one I wanted or felt compelled to tell and not felt obliged to tell, i.e. "this will sell." I'm not sure I could write any other way. I feel quite liberated in this respect.

Maurice: Liberation, I think, is something every writer is striving for. I feel like many writers start a project they're enthusiastic about, but run out of joy. Do you ever get stuck in a project you were excited about? How do you get unstuck?

Sahar: Being "stuck" for me is a signal to pause and determine whether it's the project itself that's just not working--not resolving a plot-hole or figuring out how to transition between periods of time, etc. It's definitely not unusual for me to halt--or be halted--in a longer project and I accept it as an opportunity to work out possibilities. I'll give the writing a break, maybe 2-3 weeks--sometimes even a summer--and if I haven't yet resolved those issues that have impeded progress, I begin to let it go and move on to something. It can sometimes be a painful break--it's like an unhealthy relationship which you know isn't working, but you continue to defend aspects of it that have brought you joy.

If the stuck-edness is a result of other more complicated issues such as who I am to write this story? Am I appropriating someone else's trauma? How can I tell it best and meaningfully? This is more often my private battle as a 2nd-gen Palestinian American. But then I remember what Alexander Chee says about so-called writer's block: "The writer stops writing when they believe the idea is fraudulent. When they believe the idea will trick them into making a mistake."  I step away and attempt to deeply investigate my intentions and goals, as well as the attendant apprehension and dread of not telling the story in the way it deserves to be told when the stakes are high around my particular community.

Maurice: That's wisdom we can all use, Sahar. Tell me about joy in your writing life. Where is it? How do you find it?

Sahar: I find the most joy at the start of a story--when an idea begins to take shape and I want to drop everything to write. Outside of its solitary nature, I find immense pleasure in my writing groups and collaborations. It took me some time to reach out to peer-writers I admire and ask if they'd like to make a space for sharing and critiquing our works-in-progress. I had to shed major insecurities to really engage in a process of mutual trust and respect. And above all else, it's been tremendously fun, and, particularly during the last 2 years, the space has been one for self-care and nurturing each other so the creative work doesn't diminish. My writing partners and I spend 1/3 of our time checking in before we workshop our pieces. Lastly, I read a great deal because I write. Since the pandemic, when my brain underwent a strange rewiring, I've turned to audio books which, for me, offers a wonderful, theatrical rendition of a typically 2-dimensional experience.