Farhana Shaikh

Farhana Shaikh is a writer and publisher. She founded The Asian Writer in 2007 and later established Dahlia Books to publish regional and diverse voices. She is the project lead of the ACE-funded Middle Way Mentoring project with regional and national partners. In 2017, Farhana won the Penguin/Travelex Next Great Travel Writer competition. A year later, she was longlisted for the Spread the Word Life Writing Prize and had her short play, Risk staged at Curve theatre.

In 2023 Farhana was longlisted for the Women’s Prize Discoveries award for her novel-in-progress which was supported through a DYCP grant. She is a recipient of the 2025 Writing East Midlands Mentorship. She lives in Leicester and is on X where she talks about books and publishing @farhanashaikh and occasionally visits Instagram as @farhanabshaikh.

Find out more about Farhana on her website here.

Farhana’s experience of working with The Writing Coach:

“Since working with Jacqui as part of my DYCP application I have been longlisted for the Women’s Prize Discoveries Award and secured a Writing East Midlands mentorship. I’ve had the confidence to see through my novel – which has been whirling around in my head for decades! I’m grateful for Jacqui for holding space for me and my work, it’s been a massive confidence boost.”