Author: Raidah Shah Idil

Raidah Shah Idil is a student counsellor, poet, writer, and creative instructor with a passion for YA (young adult), fantasy, sci-fi and detective fiction. She was born in Singapore and moved to Australia at the age of 12. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (English) and Bachelor of Science (Psychology) from the University of New South Wales in 2005. After working as a marketing copywriter and studying the Islamic Sciences in Amman, Jordan for nearly two years, she returned to Sydney, got married, then moved to Malaysia. While working as a part-time tutor at Axiom Learning, she works as an online counsellor for Seekershub Global. She has completed her Diploma of Counselling through the Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. Her full-time job is raising her baby daughter. Everything else is squeezed in between. Literally. Her writing has been published in The Feminist Wire, SISTERS magazine, Daily Life, Lip Mag and Venture Beat. Raidah’s poetry was recently published in the ‘Armed With Only Our Souls’ online DDFS chapbook by New York poet Caits Meissner. Her debut double-featured novel, “Finding Jamilah and the Story of Yusuf” was published by MyLegacy publications in early 2014. In her spare time (ha), she reads, listens to audiobooks, goes on walks, and is always on the lookout for tasty noodle soup. She currently lives in a green, leafy suburb in Kuala Lumpur with her husband, three small children and mother-in-law.
Life

Muslim ADHD summit and more

Raidah Shah Idil

Soooo it’s been a while. Lots has happened.

1) I’ve completed my first month working at Basira Education and am so thrilled to be part of the wonderful team. If you haven’t already, check out their fantastic Why Islam is True course. Teacher training certification starts on November 13 so there’s still time to register.

2) Now that I’m on the mend from my much-needed pelvic embolisation surgery, I’ve gotten back on track with my postpartum exercise routine! Mutu Mamas has been my online exercise companion since the birth of my first child. It’s such a relief being able to exercise again without pelvic pain.

3) It’s Nanowrimo! Are you writing? Editing? Surviving? It’s all valid. I’m working on some non-fiction work right now and once that’s done, I can dive back into edits for my adult romcom.

4) I recently signed up for the VIP pass for this wonderful Muslim ADHD summit. This is the first of its kind and I’m so thrilled. I cannot wait to dive into the recordings once the captions and transcripts are up, yay.

5) If you’re looking for top-notch, high quality honey please look no further than Dino Kelulut. This sweet-sour honey is the perfect way to start my morning and end my day. I mix mine with room temperature water. My kids love it mixed with Greek yoghurt. Don’t mix it with anything warm/hot though!

art, Books

Australian Muslim Writers Festival #AMWF2022  @therightpencollective

Raidah Shah Idil

Aaaah! Alhamdulilah I’m so excited to be part of this incredible line-up of authors! Thank you to the organisers for putting together the press kit.

Please click here to check out the full event list. Stay tuned for more!

All the tickets are available here. The festival is entirely free, and you can pay what you can if you wish. We are using #AMWF2022 and #OURTABLE

photography

Author headshots are up

Raidah Shah Idil

It’s taken me a decade, but hurray alhamdulilah my updated author headshots are up (scroll down)!

THANK YOU AZALIA for being such a warm, funny and supportive portrait photographer. I 100% recommend hiring Azalia to do your author photoshoots if you’re in PJ/KL. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter. I love taking photographs but feel incredibly awkward when I get my photos taken – kind of like a flailing octopus (my hands! where do I look? is my hijab on right?). Fortunately, Azalia was an expert at putting me at ease, and took such wonderful photos of me. Marookha is a gorgeous Gentlewoman’s Club in TTDI. Thank you Zara for giving me the perfect backdrop.

And now. Back to writing!





editing

Editorial services open!

Raidah Shah Idil

I’m excited to share that I’m ready to take on new manuscripts! I would love to support you on your querying journey, especially if you’re a marginalised author.

Click here for my editorial rates, and click here to contact me. I’m looking forward to hearing from you. My slots close on August 31st.

August 1-2 #DVPIT has come and gone. If you participated, I hope you had a great time. I remember the thrill of getting agent and editor likes back in 2020! Interestingly, none of my #DVPIT likes led to my offer of representation. I had lots of agent interest, partial requests that turned to full requests but my one incredible agent offer was via regular cold querying. Even though querying is harder than ever, please trust that it’s not a reflection on the worth of your book, or your ability as a writer.

If you didn’t get any agent likes (or less than everyone else) – don’t fret! It’s not easy summarising an entire book into a tweet. Keep writing! Also, take breaks. Breaks are important too.

Interview, SBS

Let Me Tell You SBS podcast

Raidah Shah Idil

I’ve been sitting on this for a while and am SO excited to share my upcoming podcast episode with SBS!

‘Let Me Tell You‘ is a new SBS Voices podcast where eight Australians share the stories that shook them, and shaped who they are.

It was a delight and honour being interviewed by Caitlin Chang and Sarah Malik. Thank you to them and the amazing sound team – Jeremy and Max. My free hours during the daytime are few and far in between, and I’m so grateful the SBS team worked around my busy schedule and pulled off such a wonderful interview across timezones.

My episode is scheduled to launch on July 6th, and two episodes are live so far:

Ep 1: https://pod.fo/e/12a195

Ep 2: https://pod.fo/e/12a1b5


editing, sensitivity read

Stay tuned for more…

Raidah Shah Idil

I’m SO excited to announce that I’ll be opening my editorial, counseling and sensitivity reader services in July, inshaAllah! Slots are very limited so please get your name down on my waitlist by clicking here.

My sensitivity reader review from Hana Lee (Hi Hana!):

I had a fantastic experience with Raidah’s sensitivity reader services! She read the manuscript (twice!) within my requested reading period, made notes as she went along, and sent me a full write-up when she was finished. I really appreciate that she not only called out the terms I was using that carried significance I wasn’t aware of, but also offered suggestions for replacing them. She also commented on examples of representation she felt were done well. While it’s important as a writer to know where you can do better, it’s also helpful to know what you’re doing right! I would definitely recommend Raidah’s services to anyone looking for a skilled and thoughtful Muslim sensitivity reader.