When the weather turns chilly and the coffees turn pumpkiny, most people dream of sweaters and firesides and turkey. But at Ribaat and Daybreak Press, we dream of pencils and paper and keyboards!
Every fall, Ribaat students who itch to write commit to a semester of nurturing those creative muscles by enrolling in COM101 – Creative Writing. There, they embark on a journey of learning to reveal their characters, weave in settings, and bring their readers along on an irresistible ride. They practice ditching filters and tidying tags. They read examples of writing that make us all jealous—whoops!—I mean, help us learn what to aim for. They marvel at the marvelously varied directions one simple story prompt can take a group of writers. And they never, ever fail to impress. Writers who’ve never written before, writers who live in fear of the blinking cursor, and even writers for whom English is a second language all find their voices together.
But what about the writers who can’t fit COM101 into their schedule this year or who already took it? The fall writing trend expands for them to include other things in the Daybreak Writing Season—beginning with our free NaNoWriMo programming.
NaNoWriMo is National Novel (or Nonfiction) Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is a worldwide endeavor each November, in which writers aim to sit down and finish 50,000 words or their entire manuscript in that one month. Daybreak provides in-person and online NaNoWriMo writing spaces where Muslim women writers can gather and work together toward completing their projects. Every year, one or two Rabata members reach that 50,000-word goal, and the rest of us at least get a good boost in our motivation, setting aside time we would normally spend doing other things to cultivate our creativity.
In 2023, however, we realized that NaNoWriMo sort of creeps up on many writers. We were organizing Nano programming and even we struggled to be mentally ready on November 1! We watched despair overcome writers who tried to jump in during week two or three, only to become frustrated at trying to begin midstream. So we created Preptober programming.
Unfortunately, we can’t take credit for that awesome word “Preptober;” credit goes to the NaNoWriMo organization. But we made it our own with weekly workshops on the writing craft and the business of writing. Beginning the first Saturday in October and running every week through the second Saturday in November, we host workshops on each phase of the writing journey. From ideas and research to publication and marketing, Daybreak’s Preptober is a chance to stretch out and warm up those writing muscles, learn some new techniques, and get in the NaNoWriMo headspace so we’re ready to strike keys on day one.
Now: Lest you think that NaNoWriMo is the only special thing about November at Daybreak, brace yourself for the Authors Studio! The deadline to apply for this innovative program is also in November.
Beginning in January of 2025, Daybreak will be hosting a 12-month writing intensive that includes monthly classes, weekly writing sessions, and a private Daybreak staff mentor for each member of the studio. This rigorous curriculum is designed to guide writers from the idea stage all the way through to a completed first draft—with three chapters professionally edited—by December. And this year’s extended application deadline for the 2025 Authors Studio is November 24.
Whew! That’s a lotta writing! Why would an organization like Rabata focus so intensely on writer education and community? Of course the answer is found in Rabata’s mission statement. “Promoting positive cultural change” isn’t something we do today or this week. It isn’t something we accomplish and then go on to the next thing. It’s a way of life. An ongoing, generational purpose. We envision ripples of goodness and leadership expanding from each Rabata member and Ribaat student to her family and her mosque and her community. Legions of women leading with Prophetic wisdom, by teaching and by example, inspiring those around them to likewise become loci of goodness and leadership. And to do this, we need to create a legacy.
Everything that lives under the Rabata umbrella is geared toward leaving a legacy. Educational institutions, convert care, worship routines, halaqa curricula . . . all these are geared toward raising well-rounded Muslim women who will carry their knowledge forward. But many of these are also in some way transient. The things a person learns are transmitted to others one class or audience at a time. All of us who are blessed with seriously spiritual worship routines will pass on. But books! Books can reach thousands at one time and the information in them remains, even when their authors are no more. Books can serve the education of Muslim women in our own programs and an ever-increasing number of others. So Rabata has identified publishing as an important method of promoting the cultural change we wish to generate.
To pursue this goal, we have set an objective of publishing 100 books in the next 10 years. Books of quality in the areas of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, academia, and children’s books. Books that will shine from library and bookstore shelves and speak to people of all different walks of life. Books that will transmit knowledge and values, shape worldviews, and open hearts.
This is a laudable goal, no doubt, but who will write all those books? As usual, Anse Tamara’s long-range vision to the rescue! Creating a community of like-minded writers who are working constantly to improve their craft, increase their confidence, and join the ranks of the published will insha’Allah result in a plethora of dedicated authors and fantastic manuscripts. Daybreak’s programs aim to strengthen our written voices and flood the literary market with positive cultural works, and we renew this intention every fall during Preptober, NaNoWriMo, and the Authors Studio application push—a time we’ve come to refer to as Daybreak Writing Season. Join us, won’t you?
Anse Najiyah Maxfield, Rabata Head of Publishing, Ribaat Academic Institute Instructor
