

It went really, really fast and I found my agent, JL Dermer from New Leaf Literary, who is the literal best. But when I queried, I got an offer about 10 days later, which was wild and like I still don't know how that happened. I wrote the book in April, and then I started querying in May, which I would not recommend. I had a very unusual querying process on my book - most times it will take a lot longer. What was it like querying literary agents? Basically, every time I had a single spare moment I would just sit down and write because I really, really wanted to finish this story. I would get to my internship an hour early and sit at the Starbucks next door and write, and if I had an hour between my classes I would sit down in the cafeteria and write, or I would stay up one hour later after finishing my homework and write then.
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How did you find the time to write a full manuscript while juggling school and your internship? It felt like I couldn’t not tell the story at the time. When I sat down and started to write it, it just came out of me. But I felt like it was the right time and the right place to do it. So I was taking six classes and interning three days a week and just doing all kinds of things, including social obligations, at the same time. I wrote the book during my second semester of junior year. Can you tell us a little about what the writing process for Counting Down With You was like? You were still in college when you wrote this book. The FBomb had the chance to chat with Bhuiyan about her debut novel, her unconventional path to getting a book deal, and the joy that comes from writing a story that reflects your own identity. But as her character Karina gets deeper into her fake relationship, she begins to wonder if she has feelings after all. “I've always loved the fake dating tropes, and I think it's so fun to be able to do all the dating stuff without having to have feelings,” said Bhuiyan. When her parents unexpectedly go on a monthlong vacation to Bangladesh, Karina finds herself spreading her wings - while in a fake relationship with the most notorious bad boy in school. It tells the story of Karina Ahmed, a Bangladeshi American teen from a tight-knit family in Queens, who wrestles with pursuing her dream of studying English and her parents’ expectations. “So I wanted to write a story for 16-year-old Tashie and for all the other young brown girls out there who have never had stories where they felt like they could truly relate to the main character.”Ĭounting Down With You, Bhuiyan’s highly anticipated debut novel, was released on May 4. “I never saw anyone that looked like me or had the same struggles as me,” she said. It’s just always been something I’ve wanted to be involved in.”īut Bhuiyan, who is now 22, was also very aware that the stories she came across did not reflect her experiences as a Bangladeshi American teen from an immigrant family. “But I've always grown up loving the genre and loving all the tropes. “I was reading Twilight in the fifth grade, which you probably shouldn’t be doing,” Bhuiyan recalled. When Tashie Bhuiyan was in middle school, she immersed herself in the world of young adult literature after a teacher suggested a few titles to her.

Arts and culture This Author Wrote the Bangladeshi American Story She Wished She Had Read as a Teen
