Bio
Fatima Zahra is an immigrant Muslim author who is ethnically Pakistani and has grown up in Ireland, Australia and the UK. After completing a degree in electronic engineering that she initially chose to ‘write accurate sci-fi’, she is an engineer by day, but her first love and deepest passion has always been writing. Encouraged by her grandmother, she wrote her first ‘book’ when she was five-years-old, a scribbled mess titled, ‘The Haunted House and Other Stories’ (except there were no other stories, to the dismay of her primary school teacher).
Fatima is committed to writing stories that are heartfelt, thought-provoking, and most importantly, fun to read. When she’s not furiously typing away at her keyboard or ruthlessly restructuring her plots, she enjoys photography, cricket, history, STEM, and all things storytelling. ‘The Death and Diffraction of Safa Rizwan’ will be her debut novel and is inspired by her personal struggle with grief after her grandmother’s death, as well as her family’s unique folklore. This book was revised through the Roundtable Mentorship Program 2025, and after receiving seven offers of representation, is now represented by Lucy Balfour at WME.
Manuscript
Wishlist
(MSWL)
I'm a vicarious reader and enjoy romance in a myriad of genres (contemporary, fantasy, thriller, mystery, magical realism) and at various ends of the literary spectrum (commercial, upmarket, literary). I gravitate towards character-driven books with strong emotional cores and love a good plot twist or two. While I do love to sink into an intricate world in a high fantasy or sci-fi setting, I find myself drawn these days more towards high-concept plots with grounded settings and something to say. I'm also a big fan of genre blends and would die for a mystery or thriller with a strong romantic subplot, an upmarket romance, or a speculative romance.
Tropes wise, I'm a huge fan of slow burns, friends-to-lovers, reluctant-allies-to-lovers, RIVALS-to-lovers (my fav), enemies-to-lovers (within reason)... But if you find that it's hard to particularly define the tropes in your book, I especially want to read it!
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Some specifics I'm looking for include:
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In YA:
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fluffy rom-coms - favourites include If I'm Being Honest (Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broke), Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute (Talia Hibbert), Check & Mate (Ali Hazelwood), Better Than the Movies (Lynn Painter)
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contemporary with a speculative or magical twist such as Before I Fall (Lauren Oliver), As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow (Zoulfa Katouh), See You Yesterday (Rachel Lynn Solomon)
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fairytale retellings such as The Lunar Chronicles or Heartless (Marissa Meyer)
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sci-fi or dystopian novels such as This Mortal Coil (Emily Suvada)
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Thrillers in the vein of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (Holly Jackson), One of Us Is Lying (Karen McManus) or Truly Devious (Maureen Jackson).
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Adult:
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voicy, light-hearted rom-coms that can be comped to You Deserve Each Other (Sarah Hogle), Sofia Khan is Not Obliged (Aisha Malik) or Emily Henry
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slow-burn sport books with romantic subplots such as Carrie Soto is Back (Taylor Jenkins Reid) or From Lukov With Love (Mariana Zapata)
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moving, emotional SFF such as This is How You Lose the Time War (Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone), The Everlasting (Alix E Harrow)
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magic realism like The Seven Year Slip (Ashley Poston) or The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (VE Shwab)
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Upmarket or literary works in the vein of Beartown/My Friends (Fredrik Backman), Everything's Fine (Cecilia Rabess), Little Fires Everywhere (Celeste Ng), Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (Gail Honeyman), The Correspondent (Virginia Evans) or anything that can be comped to Taylor Jenkins Reid.
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I am absolutely NOT a fit for:
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dark romance (specifically the romance and the dynamic between the characters, including abusive and stalker-ish love interests, etc - to be clear, I enjoy and will consider dark stories in terms of gritty plots, etc, if the romance is relatively wholesome)
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large age gaps
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pregnancy tropes
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Please do consider adding any potential trigger warnings to your submission; I don't have any solid dealbreakers but it would be good to know what to expect! I am typically not the best person for fake-dating (sorry!) or insta-love stories either, but can be persuaded otherwise if there's a fresh take on the trope. I am very interested in uplifting BIPOC voices, particularly Pakistani or Muslim authors, so would love to see that in my inbox!
Mentoring Style
My biggest strength is my big-picture feedback. I like to take a story as whole and consider the plot, the character development, and the worldbuilding first, before diving in at a line-level. I'm open and flexible when it comes to feedback delivery method; typically I'd send across an edit letter as a word document, but I love to hop on to calls to brainstorm edits, discuss particulars, or even just chat as fellow authors in this whirlwind of an industry! My feedback will never be prescriptive; at the end of the day, it is your story, and I'm here to support you to deliver your vision as much as I can. After polishing the manuscript, we can work on the submission package, and throughout the course of the mentorship, I will be available to reach on email/WhatsApp/call/Zoom/whatever works best for you. Post-showcase, I'm here to pull together query lists, to talk querying strategy, and to weigh potential offers.
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I'd love to be an open book to my mentee and am available to discuss anything you may want. I'd want to continue the connection beyond the end of the program and would love to be a long-term part of your publishing journey.
Applications
from Connections
Please do not apply to me if we've ever beta read for each other. If we're in the same discord(s) or mutuals on social media but haven't talked more than a comment on a post here or there, feel free to apply! If in doubt, please feel free to apply anyway, although for ethical reasons, I will not consider applications from those I consider friends.