BIRTH OF A BOOK – The Origins of I Left You Behind by Nazneen Sheikh October 9, 2025 – Posted in: Inspiration – Tags: Fiction, i left you behind, short stories

I Left You Behind, my collection of short stories, arose from an accident.

During Covid, I had spent hours gazing at old family photographs of my father whom I adored. Then I took this a step further and wrote down my earliest memory of him. The story flowed like silk. I was stunned that I was able to finish it. I sent it off as a sample with the application of a Toronto Arts Award Grant and then forgot about it. Three months later the news that I had received a $10,000 grant not only stunned me but also confirmed that I knew how to write a short story.

The train had left the station.

So, I wrote another short story.

That’s the accident part. Never mind the reader, it was actually I, the author, who was hooked on these stories. I have an addictive personality. I knew there were ideas, perspectives and emotions as well as people who had floated in and out of my life. As I am so often enchanted by people, I could sense many of them had “literary potential.”

In my way, my heroes and heroines and timelines and disguises were of no consequence. Most novelists are story tellers, they sniff out a story and consign it to memory before even writing it.

In my case I have travelled extensively and each voyage adds to my file of material—only the file is not physical, rather it’s just a roar in my head. No one can hear it but me until I sit at my desk and stare at a blank page. Then after a million delaying tactics and quirks I write the first line and race into a story. “A line after a line after a line is power,” as Margaret Atwood had said.

It was actually Margaret Atwood, a dear friend for many years, who provided an important catalyst to this collection—and her intervention added another challenge. Margaret kindly asked me to send her two of my stories and she chose one and sent it to The Walrus. Their response was immediate—they wanted the story for their next issue. I was dazed and I got back to work.

As I had been weaned on the writings of O Henry and Maupassant, short stories are very much like polished gems in my mind. Brevity was my goal, like shining an apple with a small square of cloth and not an entire towel. I stuck to my word count of 5000 words.

Ironically, once I submitted I Left You Behind, an editor suggested removing two of the stories but I stuck to my guns and those same stories have been mentioned several times favourably in reviews. The Indigenous content of one of the stories made me fearful how it might be received, so I sent it to the elegant Tomson Highway. He took his time with it and said I had done it perfectly and not to worry. I hope all readers will enjoy I Left You Behind and take their time with it.