About

I love literature. It’s my Dhruva Tara, my north star.

When I am not teaching, I am reading and writing. I also love to travel and do so as and when possible.

While growing up, my family moved around extensively and therefore I picked up different values, socially, situationally, and symbolically, from each particular culture. I have learned to pick the best from each culture while still being able to acknowledge the existence of traits or traditions I don’t approve. Human evolution is dependent on critical thinking. I have learned that as means of natural selection, the most generalized species have a better chance of survival, and the same goes for culture. I believe there is such a thing as a general human culture which may overlap the basic human needs, and then a society eventually adapts itself to the resources around it, making a different culture. My experiences reflect that when a culture changes it is not necessarily destroyed.

I have lived in  Kansas, New York City, New Mexico, and California. I love my writing community in Ireland. I  claim communities and not countries where ever I wander and the energy feels home.

I am married to the incredibly gifted artist, Jamie Berry.

I don’t use Facebook. I occasionally share content on Twitter/X.

Annie Q. Syed is a reader and writer who teaches full time. Her most recent fiction was longlisted for the Cúirt New Writing Prize (2023) and The Bournemouth Writing Prize (2022), and shortlisted for the Bristol Short Story Prize (2021). Her essays and fiction have appeared in The Letters Page, The Common Breath, Zeno Press, The Fiddlehead, The Honest Ulsterman, Tahoma Literary Review, Bath Flash Fiction and other anthologies. Her novel manuscript was shortlisted for The International Debut Novel Competition (formerly known as Novel Fair) and long-listed for the Exeter Novel Prize.