Today’s the book birthday of our latest interviewee, Seema Yasmin, whose book, Unbecoming, is now available to buy! If you’re interested in near-future speculative fiction, a sprinkle of dystopia even, then this is a book that’ll be right up your alley.
And don’t forget, you can also keep up with Seema on instagram.
Have you always known you wanted to be a writer? How old were you when you wrote your first story?
Absolutely not! Writing was something other people did. I didn’t grow up knowing any writers or believing that a girl like me: Muslim, Indian, from a conservative immigrant family, could even be a writer. But I was lucky enough to be raised by a mother who fed me books like they were food. We read and read and talked about reading and went to book talks and used a thesaurus and shared new words. Mum was a total bibliophile and logophile and she always raised a hand to ask a question at a book talk, whether the invited author was bell hooks or Ian McEwan. But although I was consuming stories, the idea of shaping my own thoughts and ideas into stories didn’t occur to me until I was in my thirties when I realized there were huge limitations to what I could achieve in my work as a disease detective. I had been a hospital doctor in London then moved to the US to serve as an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service and I was investigating outbreaks of diseases such as whooping cough — diseases which could have been prevented with vaccines. I was on the frontlines of scientific misinformation and disinformation, back when these weren’t hot topics. I was witnessing how impotent thepublic health messaging was compared to viral content that was convincing people to not get vaccinated, not trust doctors, not trust the scientific process. So I left the Epidemic Intelligence Service to go to journalism school. One day, around four years after I had become a science journalist, I was riding my bike through the Stanford campus (where I was a journalism fellow) and I had this realization that my entry into journalism had been my way of officializing or professionalizing my desire to write. It felt like pretty typical immigrant-mindset behavior: I couldn’t just go and be a writer; I had to train as a professional writer — a reporter — first. By this point I was publishing poetry and short stories and had finished a draft of my first book. That desire was probably always there, as evidenced by a short story I wrote when I was seven about a woman who becomes a spider so she can poison men and exact revenge. I’m not sure what feminist literature mum had me reading at that time.
What pieces of media would you say were formative for you? Do you see any of their features in your own writing?
I read the entire bell hooks canon as a teenager, as well as Marilyn French and queer classics such as Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle. I read This Bridge Called My Back, an anthology edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, when I was seventeen and it changed my life. Queer brown women writing poems and essays about their lives and desires was revolutionary. I felt the deep power and potential of literature.
When you close your eyes and imagine an apple, what do you see? An actual apple, a sketch of one, a blackness? Do you think that impacts your writing process?
I see a Granny Smith in all its crisp, green glory. I see it nestled in a bowl of fruit, as if it’s ready to be painted as a still life, which is interesting, because I can’t draw or paint for s*%t. But I am teaching myself. I’m inspired by Abby Hanlon’s creative journey.
If you wanted to learn about craft, which three authors would you suggest reading?
For non-fiction: bell hooks for the weaving of personal narrative with academic writing. For memoir: Seema Reza for the clarity of her prose, although she’s also a phenomenal poet. Reza’s memoir, When the World Breaks Open conjures vivid scenes even though each page comprises just a few, often devastating, lines. For poetry: Cameron Awkward-Rich and Cortney Lamar Charleson.
When you’re building your world, what do you focus on? How do you try to make it come to life?
I spend a lot of time thinking about the quotidien details of my character’s life. So for Unbecoming, I was asking: how different is a world in which abortion is punishable by the death penalty? In that world, what does a school trip to a botanical garden look like? What does your love life look like? What do your teachers talk about?
What projects are you currently working on? Can you share any details yet?
I’m working on a YA novel about a girl and a djinn, a picture book about the body, and a middle grade series called Muslim Mavericks which will be published in 2025 by Simon and Schuster. The first installment in that series is about the legendary Maysoon Zayid.
Three pictures that capture the aesthetic of your book?
Three songs you would put in your book’s soundtrack?
What would be your dream project?
Co-writing and producing Unbecoming: The Bollywood Musical on Broadway, and creating oversized books for Assouline and Taschen.
Which of your characters would you most want to fight a zombie apocalypse with?
Noor. (She’d mean well but she’d probably get us killed.)
You’re stuck on a desert island and you’re allowed only three (LGBT) books. What are you taking?
That’s too hard!
You can collaborate on anything with anyone in the LGBT community: who would it be and why?
Unbecoming: The Drag Show, with LaWhore Vagistan, aka Kareem Khubchandani.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Seema Yasmin is an Emmy Award–winning journalist who was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, medical doctor, professor, and poet. She attended medical school at Cambridge University and worked as a disease detective for the US federal government’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. She currently teaches storytelling at Stanford University School of Medicine, and is a regular contributor to CNN, Self, and Scientific American, among others.
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