The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #166: Samina Najmi
"Growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, my first nonfiction love was Mark Twain’s memoir, "Life on the Mississippi"—for the world it depicted, but also very much for the voice."
Since 2010, in various publications, I’ve interviewed authors—mostly memoirists—about aspects of writing and publishing. Initially I did this for my own edification, as someone who was struggling to find the courage and support to write and publish my memoir. I’m still curious about other authors’ experiences, and I know many of you are, too. So, inspired by the popularity of The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire, I’ve launched The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire.
Here’s the 166th installment, featuring Samina Najmi, author of Sing Me a Circle: Love, Loss, and a Home in Time. - Sari Botton
P.S. Check out all the interviews in The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire series.
Samina Najmi teaches multiethnic US literature at California State University, Fresno. Her memoir-in-essays, Sing Me a Circle: Love, Loss, and a Home in Time, won the Aurora Polaris Award in Creative Nonfiction and was published by Trio House Press in Oct, 2025. It has received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and is featured among Poets & Writers’ five nonfiction debuts of the year. It is also included in the Best of 2025 roundups by Debutiful and the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP). Daughter of multiple migrations, Samina grew up in Pakistan and England, and has lived in Fresno since 2006. Here she has watched with wonder her children, her students, and her citrus grow.
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How old are you, and for how long have you been writing?
I’m sweet 62! As an academic, I have been writing literary criticism my entire adult life, but I ventured into memoir and personal essays in 2011, at the age of 48.
What’s the title of your latest book, and when was it published?
Sing Me a Circle: Love, Loss, and a Home in Time, published by Trio House Press on October 1, 2025.
What number book is this for you?
It’s my debut in creative nonfiction.
The magic year was 2011. First, the scholar Rajini Srikanth invited me to submit an essay for the Asian American Literary Review, to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11. That essay turned out to be a synthesis of the scholarly and the personal. At about the same time, I took my first creative writing class: a two-week CSU Summer Arts course coordinated by the author Doug Rice. I began writing memoir and personal essays after that and sending them out for publication.
How do you categorize your book—as a memoir, memoir-in-essays, essay collection, creative nonfiction, graphic memoir, autofiction—and why?
My book is best characterized as a memoir-in-essays. It’s not a linear account, but over the course of the essays, which took me ten years to write, a life unfolds.
What is the “elevator pitch” for your book?
I’m not a fan of the term because elevators move fast and I don’t. But here goes:
“Sing Me a Circle: Love, Loss, and a Home in Time is a memoir-in-essays, written over a span of ten years. The author reflects on the events, people, and places that have shaped her vision of the world, from the colonial legacy of war and displacement in South Asia to her life as a mother and professor in Fresno, California. The essays encompass continents and generations, bridging the global and the local, the political and the personal, individual lives and collective consciousness. They ask what it means to inhabit a historical moment in our one, small flame of life. And they reach for beauty in the wreckage. Like the unsung writers of her family before her, the author of these essays seeks home, not in a specific place, but in time and on the page. Given that few American writers of Pakistani, Muslim background write memoir or personal essays, Sing Me a Circle brings a new dimension to the genre in the United States.”
What’s the back story of this book including your origin story as a writer? How did you become a writer, and how did this book come to be?
The magic year was 2011. First, the scholar Rajini Srikanth invited me to submit an essay for the Asian American Literary Review, to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11. That essay turned out to be a synthesis of the scholarly and the personal. At about the same time, I took my first creative writing class: a two-week CSU Summer Arts course coordinated by the author Doug Rice. I began writing memoir and personal essays after that and sending them out for publication. So most of the essays in Sing Me a Circle were first published individually in literary journals. Then my manuscript won the 2024 Aurora Polaris Award in Creative Nonfiction, and Trio House just published it this fall.
What were the hardest aspects of writing this book and getting it published?
Initially it was the emotional exhaustion. Scholarly essays require stamina, too, but the personal essays felt like a reckoning I wasn’t prepared for. Once I’d adjusted to that, it was a matter of finding the time to write, given the realities of work and two young children. I did most of my writing between 4 am and 6 am. The hardest part of the publishing journey for me was that, even though most of the essays had been published individually, it took three years to find a home for the collection as a whole.
Most of the essays in Sing Me a Circle were first published individually in literary journals. Then my manuscript won the 2024 Aurora Polaris Award in Creative Nonfiction, and Trio House just published it this fall.
How did you handle writing about real people in your life? Did you use real or changed names and identifying details? Did you run passages or the whole book by people who appear in the narrative? Did you make changes they requested?
I’m fortunate to have a supportive family, and one that understands and values writing as an art. Still, I was concerned how they’d feel about the tough stuff. I shared most of the essays before sending them out for publication and an early version of the entire manuscript in 2021. Nobody requested changes, but in comparing memories, I realized that a couple of “facts” needed nuancing, and I made those changes, unprompted.
Who is another writer you took inspiration from in producing this book? Was it a specific book, or their whole body of work? (Can be more than one writer or book.)
I don’t know that my book was directly inspired by a specific writer, but my long reading life has everything to do with how I write. Surprisingly, perhaps, the prose that moved me most tended to be realistic fiction: Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones, Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India, and Manuel Muñoz’s The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue, among others. Growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, my first nonfiction love was Mark Twain’s memoir, Life on the Mississippi—for the world it depicted, but also very much for the voice.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to publish a book like yours, who are maybe afraid, or intimidated by the process?
Fear is real, but I’d say weigh it against regret. When you arrive at the end, as all of us must, are you likely to feel good that the fear kept you safe even if it kept you from writing? Or are you likely to wish you’d had more time so you could take a chance on your writing?
What do you love about writing?
Well, first, personal writing helps me make sense of the raw material of my day-to-day life. Then when a reader enters into it and finds something resonant there, and maybe finds beauty in it, I feel the joys of validation and community.
What frustrates you about writing?
I don’t know how to make a daily regimen of it. I write when I’m compelled to, and I’d like to be more consistent.
What about writing surprises you?
The discoveries are an eternal surprise—both self-discovery and the discovery of patterns I would never have noticed if I hadn’t sat down to reflect and write. Sometimes life actually hands us metaphors, but we need the headspace and the page space to see them.
Does your writing practice involve any kind of routine, or writing at specific times?
No routine, but my golden writing hours are still 4-6 am.
My book is best characterized as a memoir-in-essays. It’s not a linear account, but over the course of the essays, which took me ten years to write, a life unfolds.
Do you engage in any other creative pursuits, professionally or for fun? Are there non-writing activities you consider to be “writing” or supportive of your process?
I love observing the goings-on in my little garden. What’s thriving, what’s not, and what I might do to enable health and beauty in that space. Non-writing activities that support my writing process also include listening: to podcasts like On Being, to music, and to other people’s conversations and stories.
What’s next for you? Do you have another book planned, or in the works?
Yes, there’s another collection of essays in the works, centered on a much smaller canvas than Sing Me a Circle in terms of both space and time. Wish me luck!
What a joy to see Samina’s book highlighted in Memoir Land! As a CSU Summer Arts and writing workshop colleague of mine over the years, it’s thrilling to see Samina’s amazing talent and her book receive the well-deserved recognition.
"I don’t know how to make a daily regimen of it. I write when I’m compelled to, and I’d like to be more consistent." Heard.