“Call Her Freedom” Author Reflects on the Long Road to Publication: 'How Could I Fail to Shine the Light on Injustice?' (Exclusive)

After over a decade of rejection, I landed a dream book deal, winning Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us contest to publish my novel. Call Her Freedom follows one woman’s journey to protect her family in a fictionalized land that draws from Indian-occupied Kashmir.

Honestly, I don’t remember entering the contest for underrepresented authors to win a book deal. This was a longshot. Plan on rejection. Accept rejection. Move on. You’ll find better. But once I was a finalist for the contest, there was no way I could convince myself that rejection would not hurt.

Call Her Freedom invites audiences into life under occupation, in hopes that by exposing the cycles of violence that permeate our families and culture we can change them. The book is bigger than me. And writing it took a lot of risks.

I didn’t call myself a writer until I participated in a 2011 workshop led by ZZ Packer at Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA), founded by and for writers of color. At VONA, I found a community, my writing group and committed to do a research trip for my novel, which was set in an occupied land that drew me to Kashmir.

A newly single mom with twins in preschool, I decided to visit Kashmir, one of the world’s most militarized zones. I’m often asked: Why Kashmir? At that time, I’d been following the summer uprisings and was inspired by how Kashmiris claimed freedom and lived in it, even when their rights were eroded.

In Kashmir, there were soldiers on every corner, checkpoints entering and leaving Srinagar’s airport. I was welcomed into homes, balling rice with curry, sharing freshly brewed kahwa, making lifelong friends. My journalist friend told me, “Kashmir is the most dangerous place on earth and that’s why you fall in love with it.” A young woman shared her story of her father disappearing and how she fought to bring his case to the highest court.

These stories and experiences became the core of Call Her Freedom. After a couple of years of revision, I had four agents reading my work. Publication felt inevitable. The responses came in: an email while riding on the bus or in line at a grocery store. “I didn’t fall in love with it.” My art was unlovable. There’s no formula for love. This was chemistry. I could land a first date, but nobody wanted a relationship.

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In 2014, when my daughters were in elementary school, I signed with an agent. My manuscript was finally being read by editors, who responded with almost-wins — an overtime pass, fumbled. “I didn’t connect with the protagonist. She is a beautiful writer. I’ll have to pass.” My novel was “dead.” Too many derailed first dates, nobody would give me a second chance. Thousands of hours – months of my life poured into a manuscript with no future.

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Instead of defeat, I focus on my second novel, which was read and summarily rejected by some of the leading agents in the industry. Writers assured me — They wouldn’t waste their time if they didn’t see potential in your work. I was full of unrealized potential. My work failed at chemistry, sparks. Some kind of pheromone test backfiring.

But how could I abandon the stories in Call Her Freedom? Disappeared husbands and fathers. Land mines exploding. Murdered sons and girlfriends. Even the most intimate conversations being recorded. One of the women who entrusted me with her stories said that it gave her hope that people in other places in the world knew of her story. How could I fail to shine the light on injustice?

The next few years were punctuated by loss, grief, COVID. My kids were in high school when I returned to Call Her Freedom. First in fragments, then in the expansive ways a novel demands. Writing was an intimate experience. My novel and I, we reached towards the future, trying to rewrite it.

I was simultaneously editing three different sections when I received an email from Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us contest: Congratulations! You are a semi-finalist. You have 6 days to deliver your manuscript. When I reached the end of the story, something moved through me, almost as if the novel now lived outside of me — Call Her Freedom was ready to be born.

For three contest finalists, the last step was a zoom interview, which I did at my kitchen table, the center of life in our home and the best lit spot. I was terrified. I had to talk, sell, pitch, market myself. My work. And then I remembered my purpose, and the power of sharing stories that are often silenced.

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A few days after the winner was supposed to be announced, I sat on my couch, scrolling through my phone. A new message from Simon & Schuster popped up. I clicked it, scanning for pivotal words: Congratulations! You are the Grand Prize Winner! I laughed, cried and called my kids. Relief, joy and gratitude flooded my body.

Simon & Schuster supported me in matching me with an agent and an incredible editor, Olivia Taylor Smith, who challenged me to embrace complexity and let the heart of the novel beat on the page.

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Having Call Her Freedom published the week of the inauguration is significant — I started this story exploring how people live in freedom when their rights are eroded. Gifted with the wisdom from people living in Kashmir about resilience and the role of culture in sovereignty, I hope that Call Her Freedom creates healing tributaries that allow us to create a different future — one rooted in human kindness and love.

Call Her Freedom comes out Jan. 21 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

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