Layla AlAmmar

Layla AlAmmar has a master's in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh, and she recently completed a PhD focusing on Arab women's literature and literary trauma theory from Lancaster University. She has published in The Evening Standard, the TLS, the Guardian, Lithub, Arablit Quarterly, and Aesthetica Magazine, where she was a finalist for the 2014 Creative Writing Award. In 2018 she was the British Council International Writer in Residence at the Small Wonder Short Story Festival. Her first novel, The Pact We Made (2019), was nominated for the Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book Award and the Author's Club First Novel Award. Her second novel, Silence is a Sense (2021), was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.