Sabaa Tahir & Sehba Sarwar

Sehba Sarwar, is an author and speaker, inspirational artist, and a dynamic community and cultural activist, dedicated to creating connections between communities around the globe. Her work tackles immigration and border issues and has appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Creative Time Reports, and ASIA: Magazine of Asian Literature. Sarwar’s short stories are anthologized by Feminist Press, Akashic Books, and Harper Collins India. Her essays, fiction, and poems have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, LA Parent, Houston Chronicle, Altadena Literary Review, Asia: Magazine of Asian Literature, and Callaloo. In 2019, a second edition of her novel, Black Wings, was released in the US. It is the story of a mother and daughter who struggle to meet across the continents, generations, cultures, and secrets that separate them. Born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, Sehba spent the first half of her life in a home filled with artists, activists, and educators. She is based in Pasadena, and her papers are archived at the University of Houston.

Sabaa Tahir is best known for her New York Times bestselling An Ember in the Ashes quartet. She grew up in California’s Mojave Desert at her family’s eighteen-room motel. There, she spent her time devouring fantasy novels, listening to thunderous indie rock, and playing guitar and piano badly. She began writing her #1 New York Times bestselling An Ember in the Ashes series while working nights as a newspaper editor. The series has been translated into over thirty-five languages, and the first book was named one of TIME’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time. Tahir’s recent novel All My Rage received the 2022 YA National Book Award, the 2023 Printz Award, and the 2022 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Fiction and Poetry. Her work has appeared on many best book lists including Amazon, Buzzfeed, The New York Public Library, Indigo, Barnes & Noble, Hypable, Paste, Bustle, LA Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, TIME and Entertainment Weekly.