Writing The Deeply Personal A Creative Writing Workshop We all have great stories to tell, but sometimes the other people in those stories would rather we didn’t. Or maybe we don’t want to reveal some crucial aspects of ourselves in our own story. This stuff is...
I didn’t cry for years. I willed my body not to. You know how some people pick out a tear jerker and sit down to have a cry? Not me. When I unknowingly began to watch Sarafina - a Whoopi Goldberg movie! - and realized what I had gotten myself into - off. I did not...
There is always a chance this will change next time around, and maybe especially because our Quran facilitator was out this summer otherwise it easily could have been a tie, but currently my very favorite activity from The Big Reconnect Maximized Mini Retreat London...
I hate it when I don’t take my own advice. I suggest to readers of my book that they do not discuss their choice to homeschool with antagonistic people. That includes people previously known (family!) to be antagonistic or just generally likely to be (strangers) when...
Join a community of Muslim women writers at varying stages (wannabe to professional) in a unique, fun opportunity to explore and hone our writing skills while creating new stories and/or sharpening work in progress. This event is calibrated to work for writing short...
Thinking back to my first dozen or so Ramadans without a Ramadan planner, they appear so lack luster now. Some of them were great, some were extra challenging, but overall they were focused on the wrong things (food!) and there was little planning that went into how...
I'm polishing up the Two Weeks Free portion of the upcoming Writing From The Fitra Workshop and thought I should take a moment to explain my process here. Firstly, I know that even though it’s stuff they love and need, it is very, very difficult for many of my...
I have been meaning to cut back on activities that folks can use to judge my mothering and make more time to write about all the bad mommy things I have done, but then some other bad mommies suggested that I open an Instagram account. So, let me quickly tell you about...
I just realized that I never got around to writing about the unassisted (assisted by my husband) birth story of Asiya Eve last year. Maybe I hadn’t done so because it was really quite uneventful. My water broke late in the morning, maybe it was even early in the...
I am offering my first ever online creative non-fiction writing workshop, starting Tuesday September 29th 2015. 8-Week online creative non-fiction workshop designed to get you writing from start to submit.
I have been meaning to write a sort of sketch for my family of all the different ways we have done Ramadan: from just me and the new hubby sharing cream puffs out of a paper bag in front of an Italian bakery in Brooklyn to enjoying a break of a solitary iftar while...
From SISTERS magazine’s November 2014 issue, some of the best sister-owned shops on the Internet’s favourite place to buy handmade. I know many folks think that shopping on Etsy can be a very dangerous thing. There are just far too many unique and wonderful things on...
For the October issue of SISTERS Magazine Aida Azlin explained to me how “It’s all about Sisterhood” with her fresh and exciting clothing (and tech stuff!) business. Brooke Benoit: The idea of entrepreneurship can be really terrifying. At what point did you know that...
Carnelian, turquoise, fine and sterling silver charmed bracelet. Have you heard the one about the convert who accepted a recited surah for her marriage? Or a promise of hajj or a complete set of Sahih Bukhari? If you know me, then you know how disinclined I am to make...
It surprises me how many Muslims respond negatively at my having a large family. Worse is when they nearly reprimand me, demanding to know if I am “done” at six kids. I thought we all knew this one: Wealth and children are an adornment of the worldly life. But the...
It has been two years since my family of eight moved from cosmopolitan Casablanca, Morocco, to a ram-packed earth house in a rural village in the High Atlas Mountains. Insha Allah, by the time you read this we will have traversed the two hour windy road down the...
