Sabaa Tahir

My dad was very strict. He was absolutely the Tiger Dad. You know, 'You got a 98% on this test? Why didn't you get 100?' That was normal life for my brothers and I.

When I went to college, it was so easy. And I worked two jobs while I was in school all the way through; I put myself through school. But working and studying was easy for me because I had worked so hard in high school, studying all the time. Taking only three classes and then working was an easy life in comparison.

Literature taught me that I wasn't alone, that I could become a writer if I worked at it, that my story mattered. Whether a young reader becomes a writer or not, they deserve to know that their story, whatever it may be, is important.

As a teenager, I felt so hemmed in and trapped, both by the place I lived and the expectations others had about school, college, and a future career.

Like me as a teen - and like many teenagers now - my characters are at a peculiar crossroads in their lives. They desperately seek freedom. But at the same time, they are constantly thwarted.

I don't go on social media with a mercenary intent to promote. That's just wrong. I go to learn, to listen, to have fun, to find people who love what I love and who introduce me to new things. That's where the joy is: in the interactions.