Sabrina Fatma Ahmad

Sad men behaving badly

In January 2023, I was sitting in the crowd, listening in on a panel at the 10th and possibly the final edition of the Dhaka Lit Fest. Sheikh Hasina had already been in power for almost 15 years, and it felt like the sun would never set on Awami League, at least not in my lifetime. 

2w ago

Everything you need is already inside you

The mid-month slump is probably the most demoralising part of the Sehri Tales challenge, even for long-time Talers.

7m ago

A change of perspective

I love reading about popular inventions which were originally created with a different purpose in mind. For instance, did you know that bubble wrap, that oh-so-ubiquitous packing material that doubles as a stress-relieving toy, was initially intended to be wallpaper? Imagine that! On the one hand, you have hours and hours of bubble-popping fun. On the other hand, probably a trypophobe’s nightmare, so maybe not. Either way, March Chavannes and Alfred Fielding, the co-inventors of the material, thought they had a dud on their hands until IBM started looking for better packing materials for their delicate new computers. The rest is history.

7m ago

The bare necessities

I remember the Ramadan of 2020, which was the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and also the year my friends and I decided to shift the Sehri Tales to our own platform and open it up to a wider audience.

8m ago

The heart will lead you back

Originally from Massachusetts, international development consultant Elizabeth Shick was living with her family in Yangon, Myanmar from 2013-2019 and got to witness not just Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy win the 2015 elections by a landslide, but the military crackdown on Rakhine state that led to the Rohingya exodus into Bangladesh in 2017.

9m ago

Learning to let go

As the novel progresses, you peel back layers of history between Claire and her grandparents and realise that the Korea issue isn’t as straightforward as our protagonist imagined.

10m ago

What you call your own

As an Anglophone writer in Bangladesh, I’ve frequently faced the rather inane question of why I write in English.

1y ago

Mood mirror

Whenever depression is depicted in pop culture, it is shown in some visible extreme, with blue-grey lighting, dark rooms, ashen faces peering out through rainy windows, bodies curled up in bed.

1y ago
November 7, 2024
November 7, 2024

Sad men behaving badly

In January 2023, I was sitting in the crowd, listening in on a panel at the 10th and possibly the final edition of the Dhaka Lit Fest. Sheikh Hasina had already been in power for almost 15 years, and it felt like the sun would never set on Awami League, at least not in my lifetime. 

April 6, 2024
April 6, 2024

Everything you need is already inside you

The mid-month slump is probably the most demoralising part of the Sehri Tales challenge, even for long-time Talers.

March 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

A change of perspective

I love reading about popular inventions which were originally created with a different purpose in mind. For instance, did you know that bubble wrap, that oh-so-ubiquitous packing material that doubles as a stress-relieving toy, was initially intended to be wallpaper? Imagine that! On the one hand, you have hours and hours of bubble-popping fun. On the other hand, probably a trypophobe’s nightmare, so maybe not. Either way, March Chavannes and Alfred Fielding, the co-inventors of the material, thought they had a dud on their hands until IBM started looking for better packing materials for their delicate new computers. The rest is history.

March 23, 2024
March 23, 2024

The bare necessities

I remember the Ramadan of 2020, which was the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and also the year my friends and I decided to shift the Sehri Tales to our own platform and open it up to a wider audience.

February 1, 2024
February 1, 2024

The heart will lead you back

Originally from Massachusetts, international development consultant Elizabeth Shick was living with her family in Yangon, Myanmar from 2013-2019 and got to witness not just Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy win the 2015 elections by a landslide, but the military crackdown on Rakhine state that led to the Rohingya exodus into Bangladesh in 2017.

December 28, 2023
December 28, 2023

Learning to let go

As the novel progresses, you peel back layers of history between Claire and her grandparents and realise that the Korea issue isn’t as straightforward as our protagonist imagined.

September 28, 2023
September 28, 2023

What you call your own

As an Anglophone writer in Bangladesh, I’ve frequently faced the rather inane question of why I write in English.

August 31, 2023
August 31, 2023

Mood mirror

Whenever depression is depicted in pop culture, it is shown in some visible extreme, with blue-grey lighting, dark rooms, ashen faces peering out through rainy windows, bodies curled up in bed.

April 15, 2023
April 15, 2023

Why so serious?

Falling into the comfortable rhythm of a familiar form, it took scant minutes to bang out a silly poem that made me laugh and melted away all the tension, and it took me back to why I created Sehri Tales in the first place.

April 8, 2023
April 8, 2023

The magic of muscle memory

While talent might determine the quality of the writing, and many of our Talers have these in buckets, the basic skill is actually a result of something more mundane: consistent practice.