Dubai: Meet Sara Hamdan, the author to get a 2-book deal with US publisher Holt

Author Sara Hamdan, from Dubai, has won a two-book deal with the publishing house Holt in the US. Her debut novel ‘What Will People Think’ was selected by the publisher after an auction. Sara is the first person in the region to achieve the feat.

A former New York Times journalist, Sara Hamdan is a Netflix short story winner and has also worked as an editor at Google. Holt has been the publisher of novelists like Toni Morrison, Paul Auster, Liane Moriarty, and Tony Horwitz.

Sara, in a LinkedIn post shared on Thursday, said that she had been “waiting my whole life to say... I am going to be a published author!!”

“This 2 book deal with a major US publisher is a regional first. Holt is the elite publisher of Toni Morrison, Liane Moriarty and even Mariah Carey's memoir,” Sara wrote.

She added, “It takes a village to make a breakthrough in any creative field. Deeply grateful to the incredible people who believed in me, from first drafts to initial rejections to dozens of edits... this is our collective win. Dubai has taught us well to dream big.”

Sara also shared that her debut novel will be launched in 2025. It features “a strong, funny Arab-American female lead.”

According to Sara’s LinkedIn profile, she is currently serving as the Managing Editor at Protocol Labs. Earlier, she was a Senior Contributor at Fast Company. In 2016, she was made the Editor-in-Chief of the MENA edition of Think With Google. Sara also had a stint at the New York Times.

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