Support your local bookstores!

Hello, Story Sunbirds!

In today’s newsletter, we’re sharing information about the upcoming Sunbirds Hour and highlighting author M.O. Yuksel.

As we’ve shared, for September’s Sunbird Hour on the 18th, we’ll be hosting a book club. Our choice, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad, has recently been longlisted for a nonfiction National Book Award! We’re so proud of Omar and looking forward to discussing this work in depth.

Whether or not you can join us, please consider purchasing the book from one of the following bookstores.

• Cellar Door Bookstore in Riverside, CA (which will also be hosting a Read-A-Thon on September 20th!)

• Possible Futures in New Haven, CT

• A Seat at the Table in Elk Grove, CA

Have others to suggest? Tell us at the book club!

Register here!

We’ll see you next week and then a few weeks later at the Summit taking place on October 4th! Keep an eye on our Instagram to see our amazing line-up of panelists. We’re counting on everyone to help us reach our donation goal with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.

There are quite a few of us so we’re meeting Sunbirds each newsletter!

Next up, we have a Q+A with M.O. Yuksel, an author from New Jersey and a volunteer on the Story Sunbirds’ Education, Advocacy & Action, and Virtual Summit Committees.

Writing as a profession had never crossed my mind until I had kids of my own. In fact, growing up, I thought I was a terrible writer. Some days, I still think I am. Haha.

I didn’t know there was room for books about my identity or religion until I was invited to my son’s preschool classroom to read a book about our holiday, Eid al-Adha. I happily accepted the invitation but, at the time, I couldn’t find any traditionally published children’s books about the holiday. What to do? Since I had promised my son’s teacher, I decided to write a story featuring my son as the main character. His class loved it! Maybe because they knew the character? But when his teacher said they needed a book about Eid al-Adha and that I should get my story published, it made me realize that there is a need and space for our stories in schools and libraries.

After many years of learning the craft of writing picture books, revising, researching, querying agents and editors, I became a published author and dedicated my Eid book to Ms. V, the teacher who invited me to read to her class and made the students in her classroom and the little kid in me feel seen and acknowledged.

Recently, at a book festival, someone asked me: “why do you write these types of stories?”

Hmm, maybe because, like many other POC, I grew up not seeing any representation in books and other forms of media. And in the rare instances there was representation, it was terribly biased and stereotyped.

My books, like In My Mosque and Ramadan Kareem, are about owning the narrative of who we are as Muslims and celebrating our holidays, traditions, and practices. But I’d like to think it’s also about helping to create a better society because when we know about and understand each other, we build a better world. A world filled less with hate and ignorance and more with empathy, understanding, and compassion.

Someone once said, picture books are empathy accelerators. I hope, and believe, that to be true.

I volunteer at Story Sunbirds and KidLitSoul. Two great groups full of caring, wonderful creators. Currently, I’m part of the planning team for the Story Sunbirds Virtual Summit, and we’re really excited about all of our fabulous panels and one of our guest speakers, Rümeysa Öztürk.

I’m also on the board of the Muslim Literary Festival, an organization that plans an annual literary festival to connect writers and industry professionals. And I’m a mentor for the Highlights Foundation Muslim Fellowship Program. I just returned from a retreat and feel so inspired and hopeful because the talent in this group of storytellers is outstanding!

Outside of work and volunteering, I love spending time with my husband and three kids. We also have three cats, so it’s a lively bunch when everyone is home.

The publishing journey is different for everyone – whether you’re what might seem like an “overnight success” or you’ve been at it for several years. I’ve learned that it’s not necessarily about having skills or talent. Talent can be learned and acquired. It’s about perseverance.

This career requires a lot of patience and perseverance. Even after becoming a published author, rejections and uncertainty continue. But knowing our purpose and intention for wanting to write for children will help carry us through the rough times and challenges. And help us to keep going.

Yes, I have a new picture book biography, THE PRINCE OF STARS: Ulugh Beg’s Quest to Map the Stars and Seasons (HarperCollins), coming out September 30, 2025. It’s about this remarkable 15th century prince who was also an astronomer. He built the largest and most advanced observatory of his time, with the first permanently mounted astronomical instrument. He cataloged over 1,000 stars, mapped constellations, and calculated Earth’s axial tilt with incredible precision. His Zij-i-Sultani, or “Sultan’s Astronomical Tables,” became one of the most accurate star charts for centuries and was used across the world. And yet, many of us have never heard his name. It’s available for preorder here and I hope you check it out!

• Sami’s Special Gift: An Eid Al-Adha Story was the first book she wrote for her son’s

  class when he was 4 years old and it’s my 4th published book.

• Her favorite superhero is Fatima al-Fihri, featured in her book, One Wish: Fatima al-Fihri and the World’s Oldest University. As a kid, she learned that a Muslim woman created the oldest university in the world which was used as a model for other universities in the world like Oxford and Cambridge.

• She loves fun read-alouds with lots of onomatopoeia which shows in the playful sounds throughout Ramadan Kareem.

Thanks for joining us, M.O.!

Looking to be the next Sunbird we can meet? Have a nomination of a friend in mind? Please email us or message on Instagram.

Do you want to support a cause or get supported? Take a look at these upcoming opportunities and on-going resources.

• Al-Jawad Camp is seeking coloring pages for children in Gaza. Send drawings to their Instagram account. You can also donate to their Chuffed campaign.

• Apply to be a 2026 Periplus Fellow, set up to “mentor promising BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) writers in the United States.” Apps close on September 20, 2025.

• Not interested in these? Galleyway and Creative Capital have lists of opportunities for artists updated every month.

See you next time! Feel free to let us know your thoughts or questions on anything in this newsletter.

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