The Nonfiction Workshop
Instructors: Zuha Siddiqui & Sara Khan
This workshop celebrates the work and memory of the writer Annie Ali Khan. This year, the non-fiction track of the LUMS Young Writers Workshop will be moderated and mentored by writers Sara Khan and Zuha Siddiqui. The five-day workshop will help participants understand the process of writing a non-fiction piece: beginning with choosing a subject, initial research (and pre-reporting), developing and writing the piece, and concluding with pitching and publishing. It will also provide participants with a clearer look at the mechanics of non-fiction writing — such as beginnings and endings, writing place and people, and the multiplicity of formats existing within the genre (from personal essay and memoir to cultural criticism and oral history, as well as features and traditional reportage). This workshop operates on the belief that we can improve as writers not just by writing regularly, but also by becoming thoughtful readers and critics. This year, we hope to have a maximum of 8 participants.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Participants of this workshop will work their way through the process of non-fiction writing, beginning with the idea stage (asking themselves two fundamental questions: What makes a good story? What makes a story worth pursuing?), and moving on to initial research, pitching, and eventually publishing. There will also be a reading list comprising books and non-fiction materials written by some of the best practitioners of the genre – including Annie Ali Khan, in whose memory this workshop has been created. There will be 5-7 mandatory readings (longform essays, reportage and craft texts) which will be sent to participants in advance, and we will spend a portion of each of our five sessions discussing and dissecting these readings in detail.
WHO IS THIS WORKSHOP FOR?
We recognize that longform produced out of Pakistan is rare, and one of the aims of this workshop is to cultivate a community of writers whose work seeks to transcend traditional forms of nonfiction emerging from Pakistani newsrooms, and who can turn to each other for help and support once this workshop ends. Pakistani writers from across the country with an interest in the craft of non-fiction writing and a willingness to break out of traditional forms are encouraged to apply. Applicants need not have prior reporting experience, nor do they need to have worked with a media organization in a writing/reporting/editing capacity. However, we are looking for compelling storytellers with interesting and (or) important ideas, so we’re asking applicants to submit two non-academic writing samples – either an essay, a memoir, or a reported piece. For this workshop, we will prioritize applications from writers between the ages of 18 and 30.
About Zuha
Zuha Siddiqui is a journalist covering climate and technology. Her reporting has appeared in Foreign Policy, VICE, Slate, NPR, and other publications. Most recently, Zuha was a Ford Foundation Labor & Tech Fellow at global nonprofit Rest of World, where her work covered how technology impacts work and the way we work in South Asia.
Zuha has been trained by the International Center for Journalists, the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, and the Center for Excellence in Journalism. She is a member of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network. Her reporting has been supported by grants and fellowships from the South Asian Journalism Association, One World Media and the EU Journalism Fund. She was also a finalist for the Thomson Foundation’s Young Journalist Award in 2023.
Zuha is an Assistant Professor of Practice at Habib University, where she teaches journalism and creative nonfiction classes. She holds a Master’s degree in Near Eastern Studies & Journalism from NYU, where she was a Falak Sufi Scholar. She is currently working on her first book, a cultural history of the Pakistani internet.
About Sara
Sara Khan is a writer and editor from Peshawar. She has an MA in Cultural Criticism from NYU, where she was an American Association of University Women International Fellow and a Stenbeck Scholar.
Sara’s day job involves editing policy research at an Islamabad-based think tank. To offset this, she edits and teaches, preferring to help others tell their stories while she tries to make time for her own writing. Her work is most concerned with women navigating domesticity and modernity, and explores themes of intimacy, nostalgia, friendship, and the big questions hidden away in everyday things.
She was shortlisted for the Zeenat Haroon Writing Prize in 2020, and winner of The Missing Slate’s New Voices Competition in 2017. Her work has appeared in two Pakistani anthologies: Narrating Pakistan and Mightier.