Exclusive Interview: S.K. Ali Chats Love From Mecca to Medina

S.K. Ali emerged as a stand-out, fresh voice in children’s literature when her debut young adult novel Saints and Misfits was a finalist for the William C. Morris award, winner of the APALA Award, and Middle East Book Award. Her subsequent YA books, Love From A to Z and Misfit in Love, also garnered much praise and accolades from media and readers alike.

Sajidah became a New York Times bestselling author with the picture book The Proudest Blue, which she co-wrote with Olympian Ibtihaj Muhammad. The sequel, The Kindest Red, is expected January 2023.

She’s also edited and contributed to the widely acclaimed middle grade anthology, Once Upon an Eid. Her next middle grade novel is Grounded, a collaboration with three other Muslim authors and is forthcoming in May 2023.

Her latest novel is Love From Mecca to Medina, the highly-anticipated sequel to Love From A to Z. You can read my review of Love From A to Z to learn all about this wonderful novel!

Pop Culturalist had a chance to speak with Sajidah about Love From Mecca to Medina ahead of its release on October 18th.

PC: To start, please briefly introduce our readers to Love From Mecca to Medina.
Sajidah: Love from Mecca to Medina is the sequel to Love from A to Z. In the first book, two characters going through challenging times in their lives, Adam and Zayneb, meet each other under serendipitous circumstances (meet-cute on an airplane, anyone? with uncannily similar journals based on a 13th century book tucked into their carry-ons?), and fall in love. In Love from Mecca to Medina, we get to see their ever-after as it happens on a journey to Mecca and Medina, the two central sites of the Muslim faith. Early readers have called it romantic, gripping and spiritual, which makes me happy.

PC: Love From A to Z originally published as a standalone novel. How did you know there was more to Adam and Zayneb’s story that you wanted to share in a sequel?
Sajidah: There are two answers for this; one from a reader-angle and another from a writer’s perspective. I’m highly aware that, generally, young readers want more closure in the stories they read and so I wanted to make sure they got to see Adam and Zayneb together “forever”; something Love from A to Z hinted at but didn’t – of course being a romance taking place during spring-break – deliver. And from a writerly perspective, I absolutely love writing these two characters; their distinct voices come easily to me and I have a lot of fun with them so I was all for exploring more Adam and Zayneb for the satisfaction of readers. (And myself!)

PC: Readers loved the marvels and oddities journal entries as a narrative format in Love From A to Z. What inspired the story-box museum idea (and the artifacts) as a way to narrate Love From Mecca to Medina?
Sajidah: My editor, Kendra Levin, and I discussed how to continue the spirit of the unique story-frame of Love from A to Z in the sequel but not replicate the same “marvels and oddities” organizational structure. I wanted to honor the space I got the idea for the first novel in – a museum – and tie it in with the souvenirs travelers often gather on trips and thus it made sense to call those items that Adam and Zayneb collect from their trip, “artifacts”, and imagine they’d be kept in a box as a record of their life-changing journey. This framing device also allowed me to bring a narrator’s voice in, something I love as a writer.

PC: Your previous novels all have a strong theme of faith and unapologetically Muslim characters. But you take it to a deeper, more spiritual level in Love From Mecca to Medina. Was this something that evolved organically as you were writing?
Sajidah: Yes! I love this question because you hit the nail on the head and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to talk about this! I’ve seen people discussing how Love from Mecca to Medina seems so (meaning “too”) spiritual, that it feels like I’m writing to inform too – which wasn’t the case AT ALL. (The all-caps shouting is intended. Which tells me I should stay away from GoodReads [laughs].) I set out squarely to write a romance. And I had already – already meaning I’d sold the book this way – chosen to set this story during the most important journey Muslims take in their lifetimes. And suddenly I realized this means going deeper into what it means to be a Muslim visiting Mecca. In reaching into my memories of being in Mecca and Medina and researching recent pilgrimage experiences of young people, I knew I had to write the spiritual element as it is. Because that’s my writerly style; I write raw and real. So yes, it definitely evolved organically. The spiritual tone served the story and served the characters and, when writing, my primary job is to honor these two, the story and characters. 

PC: What was it like to revisit Adam and Zayneb’s story after some time apart? Did it come naturally to write from their perspectives again? 
Sajidah: Writing Adam and Zayneb always feels like coming home. They are so close to me, perhaps the most accessible of all the characters I’ve written in terms of voice. (Well, them and Sausun, a character who shows up in all my novels). Love from Mecca to Medina is the end of the road for Adam and Zayneb in terms of novels but I won’t say no to sharing a little A & Z story now and then.

PC: Who or what has influenced you the most as a writer?
Sajidah: My father’s belief in my writing talent, in my general creativity, and his encouragement of it from an early age really kept me on the path to becoming an author. Along the way, knowing he believed in me spurred me to pick myself up whenever I’d fall into the pit of self-doubt. He’s very inspirational and is the one who instilled an outlook of hope in me that ultimately prevails even when I go through periods of anxiety, an outlook I try to carry into my books.

PC: What writing lessons have you learned over the course of your career?
Sajidah: I have a binder full of writing lessons that I continue to add to but one of the biggest is to pay attention to your characters first; know who they are on a level beyond what you reveal on the page. This will make them ring true to readers.

PC: How do you replenish your creative well to keep yourself excited about writing?
Sajidah: I make art and get excited about new forms of creativity, really immersing myself in something that’s different from writing but still exercises my right brain. Recently I’ve been learning about foraging; right before this, I was into flattening foliage and flowers and making art with them. I’ve also learned to make ink from various food scraps.

PC: Can you share anything about what you are currently writing or any upcoming projects?
Sajidah: Actually, sharing the activities I’m doing to replenish my creative well is a great segue to this question. All of this diving into art and nature is helping me as I write a character in a genre I’m new to: speculative fiction. That’s my next YA insha’Allah. 

Pop Culturalist Speed Round

PC: Writing session must have? (ex: music, food, drink, etc)
Sajidah: Lots of paper to doodle/brainstorm on.

PC: Plotter or pantser?
Sajidah: Plontser (My evolution: pantser à plantser à plontser [this is when you plot a lot before you pants.])

PC: Audiobooks, physical books, or e-books?
Sajidah: PHYSICAL. ONLY. Please.

PC: Genre(s) other than contemporary you would like to write? 
Sajidah: Mystery!

PC: Currently watching or reading?
Sajidah: Just finished the Kdrama Vincenzo and loved it.

PC: Go to self-care activity? 
Sajidah: Doing my nails myself, colorfully but badly.

Follow S.K. Ali online, Twitter, and Instagram.

Love From Mecca to Medina will be available on October 18th, 2022.

Photo Credit: Andrea Stenson