Hadeer Elsbai's Blog, page 4

2023 in review

the first half of this year was a blur because it was dominated by me struggling very much to write the sequel to the daughters of izdihar (the weavers of alamaxa, which you can preorder, because i put my blood, sweat, and tears into it and i think it’s pretty good lol).

however, i did manage to read more books than last year! in 2022 i read a paltry 25 books, but in 2023 i read 37! still way less than the 70-100 i used to read in a year, but at least i’m on an upwards trajectory.

favorite books...

how i got my agent

i really can’t think of a better indictment of my time management skills than the fact that i’m writing the classic “how i got my agent” post precisely 4 years and 4 months after i signed with my agent and 10 months after i’ve published my debut novel.

but i digress. let’s talk about my writing journey, shall we?

like many wee writers, i began by reading and writing fanfiction. i first tried my hand at inuyasha fanfiction when i was eleven or twelve years old, and i very quickly moved on to harry...

september 2023 updates

i announced this a while ago on social media platforms, but! book 2, the weavers of alamaxa, has a gorgeous cover!

i’m obsessed with the color scheme and the way it’s an inverse of the first book’s color. the structure in the background is modeled after cairo citadel, which i’ve been to several times, and it is magnificent (and is featured in a major scene in the book!)

i am currently working on pass pages, which means arcs will be available shortly (idk how shortly though haha). i’m very excited...

june 2023 updates

if you follow me on social media at all you may have seen that i officially announced the title, release date, and official summary for the sequel to the daughters of izdihar!

the weavers of alamaxa is coming to a bookstore near you on march 26, 2024, and it’s ready for preorders (on amazon and barnes & noble thus far). you can head to the instagram post to read the official summary, but i’ll say here that it essentially picks up right where the daughters of izdihar left off! so you will very qui...

worldbuilding 101

i will start this post with three disclaimers:

first, the most comprehensive resource for fantasy worldbuilding, imo, is patricia c. wrede’s fantasy worldbuilding questions, which asks nearly every worldbuilding question you could imagine. frankly, i’m not sure i could answer all of those questions for actual, real countries, let alone made up ones, and i wouldn’t want to! and i don’t think you need to either! but there are some superb questions in there and you’d probably want to answer some of ...

how i got my book deal

(i originally posted this about two years ago on my blog, which is now defunct, and i still wanted this exist somewhere on the internet, so here it is. apologies if you’re reading this for the second time.)

There's a reason the title has a Supernatural reference, and it's not just because I am, unfortunately, a genuine Supernatural fan (I mean, it is partly that).

I also realize I'm doing this a bit backwards, as I never actually wrote the classic How I Got An Agent post, because I'm lazy and I ke...

april 2023 updates

if you didn’t already know, i’m on a bit of a social media hiatus. there are a couple of reasons for this, but, funnily enough, being back on deadline wasn’t actually the impetus; rather, it was just a happy coincidence. really, i just realized i was spending hours — hours!!! — scrolling endlessly through twitter and instagram, to the point where — i kid you not — i think i sprained my thumb.

that’s right: the main reason i decided to delete the apps off my phone was because i was spending too mu...

post-debut happenings

well, i was supposed to have sent out a newsletter before debut day, but, well, here we are.

anyway, i had a lovely debut week! i got to chat with one of my favorite authors, shannon chakraborty, for my launch event, which was hosted by astoria bookshop, my hometown bookshop. if you missed this event, you can watch it here on their youtube channel.

my next event is actually in-person! i’m participating in books & burlesque, which is a burlesque/drag show where authors read a little bit from thei...

2022 faves

i used to do this post in scrapbook form on my blog, but who has the time or energy for that, certainly not me. so here it is, delivered straight to your inbox.

i didn’t read much in 2022 (a paltry 25 books, when my average is usually 70-120), but from the small amount i did read a few stood out, and i wanted to share them, in no particular order:

juniper and thorn by ava reid: a dark and bloody gothic fairytale retold in exquisite, decadent prose. disturbing, compulsively readable, and atmospheri...

new year, new newsletter platform

hello dear readers!

i’ve decided to migrate to substack, mainly because i’ve decided to retire my wordpress blog and wanted something that would still feel like a blog, and give me archives, but would still be relatively simple to use. it also allows you to comment and/or ask questions on every post, which is very cool!

the consequences of this mean absolutely nothing for you; if you’re receiving this email, you’re all good. the only difference you might see is that you perhaps receive more frequ...