Q&A with class instructor Bushra Rehman

Beginning November 5, 2016, in partnership with Queens Library and with support from Council Members Daniel Dromm and Elizabeth Crowley, Newtown Literary Alliance will begin offering free writing classes in library branches across the borough.

Our first class is taught by Queens-born author Bushra Rehman, author of Corona. She will be teaching “Truth & Lies: Writing Memoir” on Saturday, November 5, from 2:30–4:30 p.m. at Queens Library at Jackson Heights (35-51 81st Street).

Bushra was kind enough to sit down for a short interview.

What’s your connection to Queens?

I grew up in Corona, from about one to sixteen, so all my formative years. My first novel is all about Queens as is much of my poetry. I teach in Queens, hang out in Queens, have many loved ones in Queens but don’t live here now. I need privacy!

What can students in your class expect?

Laughing. Writing. Telling Stories. Reading the work of two great Queens writers, John Leguizamo and Ishle Yi Park and writing at least two new pieces of memoir or autobiographical fiction.

What current projects are you working on?

I’m writing a midquel to my first novel, Corona. Meaning, it’s not a sequel of Corona or the prequel. It’s the middle part of the story of the character Razia Mirza, a Pakistani girl from Queens. It’s the part I left out of the first book, her teenage years growing up, again, in Queens, but also discovering the subways and going into “the city.” It will be out with Tor Books in 2019. Before that, I have a long-awaited dream, my first book of poetry, Marianna’s Beauty Salon, coming out with Sibling Rivalry Press in 2018.