WORDSMITH Noor AlNoaimi, who is a librarian by day and a writer by night, was the first Bahraini female to bookmark a place on a prestigious international writing course.
The 35-year-old author from Riffa was nominated by the US Embassy in Bahrain to join 19 other women participating in the International Writing Programme (IWP) at The University of Iowa, in partnership with the US Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau’s Cultural Programmes Division.
“The United States Embassy in Bahrain was kind enough to let me know of the programme and had nominated me for it, knowing of my deep passion for writing,” said Ms AlNoaimi.
“The programme was empowering for young women on the outskirts of the English writing world and our instructor, Melody Moezzi, was a New York Times bestseller list author and an academic, with so much advice to share.”
The creative writing course focused on supporting women’s empowerment, diversity and resilience.
The concept of the course grew from ECA’s observations that since the global Covid-19 Pandemic first appeared and began impacting daily lives, many women have had to juggle work with caretaking, parenting and family and household maintenance.
Selected female writers, alongside undergraduate and graduate university students, came together online for four weeks and Ms AlNoaimi was delighted by the challenge and found the whole experience as enlightening.
“The experiences of so many female voices were incredibly inspiring,” she said. “The act of writing is often solitary, so another pair of eyes always helps.”
Ms AlNoaimi’s love of words over the years had resulted in her developing different stories and manuscripts including publishing her first novella entitled The Pearl Thief about Hassan, a poor Bahraini islander who finds himself in desperate circumstances.
She also wrote an Arabic children’s book called Sun Moon along with many articles and essays.
Her most recently published work was a short story included in an anthology by Saqi Books. She is currently editing a number of manuscripts.
Short story contest winners – Page 7
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