S.K. Ali’s journey to writing began when she fell in love with storytelling as a child; on long nights, her family would gather in their living room, sleeping bags in tow, to listen to her mother’s epic retellings of southern Indian fables and legends. From there, Ali was hooked. Her debut novel, Saints & Misfits, which follows a Muslim-American teenage girl grappling with the aftermath of a sexual assault, won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. Her work and activism has since gathered a passionate fan base; in 2017, Ali created the #MuslimShelfSpace hashtag to promote Muslim authors and stories. Her second novel, Love from A to Z, follows the romance of two Muslim teenagers who meet during spring break, and addresses themes like Islamophobia and chronic illness. We spoke with Ali about her highly anticipated sequel, Love from Mecca to Medina, and her belief in the power of inclusive storytelling.

Where did the idea for Adam and Zayneb’s stories come from, and what drew you to tell this story through diary entries?

The story idea came when I visited the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, at a time when there was a lot of online hate distilling Muslims into simplistic, rage-filled caricatures. I was standing in this museum full of the nuances of civilizational contributions of Muslims thinking, wow, I’m surrounded by all this art with so much depth and yet the way Muslims are understood in Western society is just a cartoonish caricature that doesn’t make sense to how I live or how I was brought up. I saw this manuscript called “The Marvels of Creation and the Oddities of Existence” by Zakariya’ al-Qazwini and I was so struck by the title. I was thinking about how in the 1200s, Zakariya’ al-Qazwini was trying to see his world and capture it on pages. From there, I thought, what would it look like if two people with opposite outlooks on life were both capturing the marvels and oddities in their lives? And though I didn’t set out to write a romance, it was interesting to me to throw in that element.

I wrote the books as journal entries as a kind of a challenge to myself. I can get very easily bored when I’m writing so I need a creative constraint. The challenge was to not only frame the story I want to tell by marvels and oddity entries in a journal but also include distinct points of view from two very different people. First person is also always more candid, but then a journal entry goes a step further into being really revelatory, and I knew that the two characters would have challenges that we needed to go deeper to understand.

Zayneb is an unapologetic and fierce Muslim woman—why did you characterize her in this way, and what did you want readers to take away from her journey?

I’m really inspired by young people who are passionate about social issues because they’re the ones who will usher in a new world. Online, there was this conversation happening around the idea of angry women, and I thought, what’s wrong with being angry? What’s wrong with caring about your world and being outraged by injustice? Why do young women have to make themselves smaller or quieter to fit a mold of what society expects of them? I wanted to give this angry girl permission to be her angry self and be rewarded with love without being asked to change.

There’s one scene in the book that some readers don’t like because they feel like Zaynab was too harsh with Adam, but I wanted her to be her “harsh self” and allow Adam to try to understand where her anger is coming from. I feel like there’s such an unwillingness in greater society to accept that everyone’s experiences can be so different and the reasons that we engage with the world in the ways we do is because of that. I wanted readers to take away that they can be unapologetically passionate about what they care about.

Throughout both books, Adam struggles with his multiple sclerosis diagnosis. How and why did you develop that element of his character?

I actually have a family member with multiple sclerosis, and so, my sister asked me to write a character who is struggling with a chronic illness diagnosis in a way that’s not a plot element or a way to squeeze out sympathy but rather, in a way that conveys and communicates hope. While I was writing this, I noticed a lot of books were being published where a character struggling with an illness passes away and the main plot was centered around another character’s struggle with grief. My sister wanted me to write a story where death is not the only path a character with chronic illness can take.

I like to challenge myself in my work but I was well aware that I didn’t have personal or lived experience with chronic illness. Thankfully, we were able to make sure that I had authenticity checks every step of the way; interestingly, I was told that I was being very, very cautious in writing about it, and that I need to go deeper into the pain and struggle of chronic illness. There’s a scene in Love from A to Z where Adam falls out of bed due to his MS, and for that scene, I got step-by-step writing input by the person in my family who has had that kind of experience. I wanted to see another narrative out there for somebody struggling with or facing a diagnosis of such an illness. It was really important for me to communicate that there’s more to Adam’s life than his diagnosis.

Love from Mecca to Medina, the sequel to Love from A to Z, is centered around the couple’s trip to Saudi Arabia to undergo the Umrah pilgrimage. Why did you choose to set the sequel there?

I decided to write the sequel because readers wanted more Adam and Zaynab, and I had written an additional novelette but readers were still asking for more. For my own selfish writerly reasons, I did want to write more because I just love Adam and Zaynab because their voices come so easily to me. I knew that I wanted the sequel to have a journey in it because they met each other on a flight and the element of journey was so strong in their story. When I thought about where this journey would be, I thought Mecca and Medina would fit perfectly because they’re two sites that Muslim readers will recognize. I’ve also noticed that for young Muslim newlyweds, the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina is a journey they like to do early on in their partnership. I haven’t really seen many novels written in English set there and it’s possible people are hesitant because it’s a place that’s considered very sacred. I’ve been fortunate to visit Mecca and Medina several times, and as a Westerner who sees both cities as extremely important but isn’t a part of Saudi Arabian culture, I felt confident that I could trace their journey from a Western point of view.

I also knew that I wouldn’t shy away from any of the realities of Saudi Arabia or the human rights issues, so I felt like I could write as freely as I wanted to. In every society, there are problematic elements and I knew I had to be truthful to that because that can’t be swept under the rug. There was a little trepidation on social media when Love from Mecca to Medina was announced because some people questioned why I was setting a romance in such a holy space. I was a little worried but I really had to trust myself and what I was doing, which was writing a story of young people going to this place that’s important to them. It’s a reality, and so I felt okay exploring that.

What challenges are you tackling next in your writing?

I’m actually writing speculative fiction which is very much not my wheelhouse. Even when I was doing my degree in creative writing, I solely wrote realistic fiction, so giving myself this challenge to write an entire novel in this genre is a struggle but it’s exciting. I have two books coming out next year: a picture book called The Kindest Red coming out in January—it’s the second in a three-book series, [beginning with] The Proudest Blue—and a middle grade book called Grounded, coming out on May 9, 2023.

Love from Mecca to Medina by S.K. Ali. Salaam Reads, $19.99 Oct. 18 ISBN 978-1-66591-607-3