I think a lot about humanity and what it actually means to show up for one another in a crisis. When the news hit that my friend Khadija—journalist, author and the managing editor for Zan Times—was recently arrested in Pakistan, that question became incredibly urgent.

I am so honoured to work with Khadija and other courageous young women like her. Behind the terrifying headlines is a person I care deeply about, and a family facing unimaginable uncertainty. Right now, showing up for them means doing the quiet, behind-the-scenes work to make sure that when they are finally able to leave the danger behind, there is a safe, secure, and welcoming place ready for them to land.

Please take a moment to read Khadija’s story below.

Dear reader,

At 4 a.m. on Tuesday, April 21, I woke up to a series of WhatsApp messages from Khadija Haidary, our managing editor.

“The police have come,” her first message read.

What followed were images I cannot forget: a police car outside her hotel, a pickup truck where she sat with her almost four-year-old son and her husband, and finally, a short video taken in front of a pre-deportation camp in Islamabad.

Then, nothing. She was offline.

My heart sank.

We had feared this moment would come ever since January 19, when her landlord asked her to leave the apartment where she and her family had lived in hiding for a year. Her immigration case was already being processed by the Canadian embassy in Pakistan. Like so many others, she was waiting for resettlement.

But waiting had become increasingly dangerous.

Pakistan’s crackdown on Afghan refugees left them with few options to stay in the country, and no clear way out that didn’t involve being forced back to Afghanistan.

I suggested Khadija and her family go to Tanzania, one of the few places Afghans could still travel to, and where Canada has an embassy. They could continue with the resettlement process in the relative safety of that African nation. I had already sent my own sister and her family there.

They’d lived in Islamabad for two years after fleeing Afghanistan following an interrogation by Taliban intelligence in 2023.

Khadija immediately agreed to the Tanzania plan.

We secured tourist visas. We paid a heavy fine for her and her family overstaying in Pakistan. We obtained an exit permit.

At 4 a.m. on February 26, she and her family went to the Jinnah International Airport in Karachi to board her flight. She was denied boarding. Pakistani officials told her that she could only return to Afghanistan.

Khadija fled Afghanistan in October 2024 after receiving threats from the Taliban for her journalism work. Today, her profile is even more visible. Returning could be a death sentence.

With help from the UNHCR in Pakistan, we booked a second flight for February 28.

Again, she was denied boarding. Officials offered the same explanation: because she and her family had entered Pakistan on a medical visa, she could not leave for a third country such as Tanzania.

Traumatized from the experience at the Karachi airport, they got a taxi and drove about 20 hours to Islamabad. Their exit permit expired. We applied and, a month later, got a second exit permit.

On April 20, we booked a third flight, this time from the Islamabad airport. Again, they were denied boarding.

The next day, she and her family were arrested from their hotel room, while still holding a valid exit permit.

They were taken to a pre-deportation camp, fingerprinted, and placed on a deportation list for Afghanistan. For 60 hours, she and her family were held there. In those hours, she was only given five minutes to access her phone to leave a message for her family.

In those five minutes, she told me they might be deported on Monday, April 27.

Those 60 hours were some of the most stressful of my life. I was frustrated. I was angry. I was scared.

Even though I didn’t name her when I posted urgent messages on my LinkedIn and Twitter about the arrest, I was worried that I could put her in further danger by speaking out. Indeed, we had kept her struggle secret for the past few months, on the assumption that going public might create more trouble for her.

In those 60 hours, I was forced to confront a situation I had long dreaded as the editor-in-chief of Zan Times: What happens if one of my colleagues is arrested?

I had always imagined panic, isolation, and helplessness. I had always imagined being alone with that responsibility.

Instead, something else happened. Something rather extraordinary.
Organizations including Free Press Unlimited, Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and PEN moved quickly to help Khadija and her family. They formed a Signal group, coordinated efforts, and pushed for help through every possible channel. Free Press Unlimited helped us hire a lawyer and take her case to the court.

Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur for Afghanistan, engaged directly, writing to the UNHCR, Human Rights organizations in Pakistan and the Canadian embassy, and Canadian immigration officials. He pressed for them to take urgent action.

At the same time, friends in Canada contacted the embassy, the immigration department and Members of Parliament. Afghan journalists and activists in Pakistan organized their own efforts. Even journalists from China who had previously worked with Khadija created their own network to support her.

What unfolded was not one intervention, but many — simultaneous, persistent, and determined.

It worked.

As I write this, Khadija and her family have already boarded their flight to Tanzania.

She is no longer in that deportation camp.

I am still holding the weight of those hours — the fear in her voice, the images she sent, how close we came to losing her to a system that offered her only one direction: back to the danger of Afghanistan.

This crisis helped me realize something important: Zan Times is part of a wider community that believes this work matters and which stands with us when we need them the most.

To everyone who stood with Khadija in those 60 hours: Thank you. She wouldn’t be free without your tireless support.

And thank you to you, our readers who read, share and support our work.

You are an essential part of this Zan Times community.

Sign Up to Zan Times

With gratitude,
Zahra Nader (she, her)
Editor-in-chief, ZanTimes

We all have holes in our history, stories that were never told, questions that were never asked. The silence can be deafening, but if you listen closely, the fragments speak volumes.

I’m on the phone with my dad, and he’s telling me a story about a cat. It’s not a new story; it’s one he’s told many times. His voice, once commanding, is thin and frail, a few months away from being diagnosed with laryngeal dystonia. My computer volume is at its maximum, but I still have to strain to hear him. I’m recording the call for my book, an attempt to capture his memories before they disappear entirely.

The story is about my grandfather, Franek, and a disagreement he had with the governor of Kabul back in the 1940s. To make his point, my grandfather told a tale about a cat he saw grinding wheat at a gristmill with one paw while sifting it with the other. He then asked the governor if he believed the story. “Not really,” the governor mumbled. “So you see,” Franek replied, “you can’t believe everything you hear”.

This seemingly harmless fable had a profound impact on my father. He was just a boy then, living in Afghanistan with his family, a world away from their native Poland. That night, as he walked to his bedroom, a shaft of light revealed a cat with glowing green eyes under his bed, and he screamed. He was afraid of the dark for the next eighty years.

This is what my dad’s stories are like—they start in one place and end somewhere completely unexpected, with a small, seemingly insignificant detail that shapes a life. They are fragmented, like the half-dozen rough-cut photographs and 38 typewritten pages of my grandfather’s memories that I found when I began writing my first book,

Your Roots Cast a Shadow. These weren’t just anecdotes; they were clues to a history I never knew.

My father, Wojtek, was born in Warsaw in 1937, but by 1938, his family had moved to Kabul. His earliest memories were of living in a villa surrounded by a stone wall, watching his mother trade with men in the Afghan markets, and hearing his father, an engineer, talk about the treacherous Tang-e Gharu highway he was building. While my father’s family was building roads in Afghanistan, my maternal grandparents were fleeing the Nazis from their home in Lwów, then in Poland. Both families were displaced by world events beyond their control, but their paths diverged significantly. My father’s family, who were not Jewish, returned to Poland after the war. My mother’s family, Polish Jews, also returned, but they were later exiled during the anti-Zionist campaign in 1968. My mother and her family were forced to emigrate. For about two decades she was unable to return to the country she had once loved.

The stories I grew up with were about my mother’s side of the family, the side I knew intimately. My mother’s parents, Holocaust survivors who had settled in Germany, were my real grandparents. We vacationed with them and celebrated holidays. I learned about my Jewish heritage through them, but my father’s family, still behind the Iron Curtain for much of my childhood, remained a mystery. They were, for all intents and purposes, totally silent. I didn’t know them, so I didn’t think about them.

In 1969, while my parents were in Iraq, my father was disowned by his family for his decision to remain abroad. It was a rift that never healed. The parent-child bond on his side of the family was fractured, creating a deep chasm that was never truly filled. I now understand that Franek and Wandeczka were under immense pressure in communist Poland. They blamed my father for their professional and social downfall, instead of the rigid and unrelenting system in which Franek worked.

My father never spoke ill of his parents. He respected them and wanted me to know I had a second set of grandparents. But as I’ve learned, he spent his entire life processing how they treated him. The unspoken trauma of his childhood manifested in his food insecurities and an almost obsessive need for stability that clashed with the nomadic nature of his life. He was a man who became a political refugee and lived in four different countries before settling in Canada, but he had a constant fear of change.

I find myself drawn to his stories now more than ever, not just because they’re a link to a past I didn’t know, but because they reveal how deeply historical events can seep into our personal lives. The Tang-e Gharu road my grandfather helped build is now crumbling, a metaphor for how his family crumbled. The memories of it are fixed, preserved in the stories he left behind. But in piecing together these fragments, I am rebuilding a road of my own—a path that connects me to a grandfather I never met and a family I never knew, but whose legacy is an integral part of my story.

Listen as Melissa Vera, host of Chats From the Blog Cabin and I discuss my diverse background, my writing, and the inspiration behind my book, which explores family history and the importance of preserving stories.

The conversation delves into the challenges of researching family history, the impact of cultural and religious divides, and the resilience of women in my family. I share surprising discoveries from my research and I read excerpts from my book, reflecting on cultural adaptation and identity.

Listen as we delve into the themes of Jewish heritage, cultural identity, and the importance of preserving family stories.

Welcome back to the world of writing, editing, and publishing! Today, Susan Scott and I tackled a question that seems simple but is incredibly complex: do we judge a book by its cover?

My immediate answer, and Susan's too, is a resounding totally. We absolutely judge books by their covers! We talked about why this is such a fundamental truth in the publishing world. The cover isn't just decoration; it's the first moment of contact with that physical object you might potentially want to bring into your life. It's huge and critically important. As Susan put it quite bluntly in our notes: marketing, duh. While we authors pour our hearts into the words, the cover's primary job is often about moving products.

It's surprisingly odd, given its importance, how little general discussion there is about cover design itself. Who are the artists? What are the trends? How do covers actually appeal to an audience? We just don't talk about the "style on the outside" very much, focusing mostly on content.

So, do you judge a book by its cover?

With this in mind, I sought someone passionate about World War II, family narratives, and my perspective. I met Susan L. Scott at a writing workshop, held three hundred sixty kilometers from my home. We discovered we lived only 1.4 kilometers apart—a serendipitous coincidence?

Too often, memoirists write for themselves, neglecting their audience. As my insightful editor observed, “There’s a big difference between expressing yourself and communicating.”

Having successfully published Your Roots Cast a Shadow, I credit my editor's guidance for much of its success. The valuable editing lessons I gained have instilled a new level of confidence, making the writing of my next book a much more enjoyable and efficient process.

Pssst. Have you heard about our Writers’ Retreat?

I did not expect to write a book about my experience in Poland. It began as a project about my family, but people kept asking why I chose to leave Canada. The truth is complicated. I was unhappy and needed a change. I did not leave permanently; I did not give up my Canadian citizenship. But, as we all know, no country is perfect, and sometimes we all need a change.

In 2015, when I began writing, Poland was undergoing a concerning shift. Witnessing Pride parades flanked by police in riot gear and the disturbing rise of neo-Nazi and ultranationalist movements was a serious reality check. I was seeing news headlines eerily similar to those my grandparents saw in the 1930s.

Tripping over the cobblestones my parents and grandparents once walked, I learned their histories from a new perspective. It became apparent that their voices needed to be heard, even though they were no longer here to speak. I knew I could tell their story and my own. Though I was in my family’s country decades after they had left, I found parallels that helped me reconnect to my long-lost roots.

These experiences sparked a deep sense of fear and prompted me to consider my own family’s history. Their journeys through prewar Poland, Afghanistan, and beyond were filled with displacement, persecution, and a constant struggle to belong.

My family’s story became a lens through which to examine the complexities of identity and the enduring impact of migration and historical trauma. My paternal grandmother navigating the restrictions of a patriarchal society in Afghanistan, my maternal grandfather fleeing Poland ahead of the Nazis only to face rejection from the country he loved—their struggles resonated with the challenges I saw people facing around me in Poland.

Ultimately, I wrote this book to inspire readers to explore their roots and question how their upbringing influences their worldview. A deep understanding of our cultural backgrounds helps develop a strong sense of self and the ability to understand another’s story and its impact on their worldview. I firmly believe that this shared awareness is the path to mutual cultural understanding.

Your Roots Cast a Shadow: one family’s search across history for belonging

There's something magical about stepping away from the everyday and immersing yourself in a space dedicated solely to writing. As writers, we often find ourselves juggling multiple roles and responsibilities, leaving little time and mental space for our craft. That's why I believe retreats are so vital. They offer a chance to disconnect from distractions, reconnect with our creative selves, and reignite our passion for the written word.

This spring, I'm thrilled to be co-hosting a writing retreat with Andi Cumbo and Susan L. Scott that’s unlike any other. We'll be taking over the entire South Landing Inn, a historic gem nestled in the heart of Niagara's wine country. Imagine: cozy rooms filled with character, delicious meals shared with fellow writers, and a tranquil atmosphere that begs you to create.

This retreat is designed to nurture both your writing and your well-being. We'll delve deep into the craft with workshops like "WRites & WReckonings," where we'll use creative exercises to confront inner truths and unlock our potential. We'll explore sustainable writing practices in "Sustainable Creativity," and conquer those unfinished projects in "Finishing What You Start." And for those looking to hone their storytelling skills, "Nail Your Story Core" will guide you through crafting compelling narratives.

But it's not just about the workshops. It's about the connections we'll forge with fellow writers, the inspiration we'll draw from the beautiful surroundings, and the time we'll carve out for quiet reflection. We even have a special "4-for-3" format, giving you an extra day to hunker down and write or to explore the Niagara region at your own pace – visit wineries, hike the gorge, or simply wander through the charming town of Niagara-on-the-Lake.

More than just a getaway, this retreat is an investment in yourself and your writing. It's a chance to:

• Recharge your creative batteries: Escape the demands of daily life and immerse yourself in a supportive, inspiring environment.

• Deepen your craft: Hone your skills, explore new techniques, and gain valuable insights from experienced instructors and fellow writers.

• Reconnect with your passion: Remember why you fell in love with writing in the first place and reignite your creative fire.

• Find your community: Connect with like-minded individuals who understand the joys and challenges of the writing life.

If this resonates with you, I invite you to learn more.

I first learned English when I started school in Canada. The first language I learned at home was Polish. I was, however, quite young when I started school and so I adapted easily. Speaking with me, you’d never guess that English isn’t my mother tongue.

Learning English in Canada is an interesting phenomenon. Usually we can stick to our own spelling and ignore the dominance of the US or UK. Sometimes, however, it feels as if we are pulled apart by those superpowers. You know, there’s the US and their missing “u”s (color, neighbor, and flavor), and the UK with their extra “l”s (jewellery, traveller, with the occasional whilst thrown in). Do you analyze or analyse?

(For the record, as I finished typing them, both jewellery and traveller have that dreaded red underline, even though I know the spelling is correct)

Canada falls somewhere in the middle. While I personally don’t like how color, neighbor, and flavor look, and I wouldn’t spell them that way by choice, I know they are correct. To be honest, I think that jewellery and traveller each look better with a single “l”. That’s my hybrid English. I can switch back and forth comfortably between them and most importantly, I know when to use one or the other.

I recently finished writing my family memoir book which I am in the process of querying. So, of course the question, “what English do I write this in?” came up. I don’t think I have ever seen that question come up in any writer’s forum other than a Canadian one. I wonder, does an American ever think to change their English to query a UK agent or magazine? I’m guessing the answer is “no.” On that same note, does someone from the UK change their English to submit to an American agent or magazine? Do the agents even care? And yet, join any Canadian writer’s group and there will be copious conversations on that very subject.

I’m not sure where I stand on the topic, although I do resent having to modify the way I correctly spell words, to appease someone else. I don’t see the reason for it.

What I will say, is that being able to switch between the two has its advantages. I spent four and a half years living in Europe where the English that surrounded me was primarily British. On several occasions I came across people looking to hire someone who could write and speak “native English”. That always made me laugh a little. What does that even mean? I can pretty much guarantee that someone from Nigeria or South Africa writes English differently than someone from Australia. While the general spelling of any given word might be American or British, the meaning might not. I knew what they meant though, they were looking for someone who could speak to an international audience.

The longer I lived in Poland, the more I knew I could find a lot of work using my English.

The first job I took while in Europe was writing for a business club run by a British gentleman. I was tasked with rewriting their menus, and all of their web copy. While I used British spelling, it still needed to sound appealing to other audiences. Since we were in Poland, most expats wouldn’t know Polish but they could make their way through English text.

I should note that translating from Polish presents its own challenges as the language is more flowery and at times can be convoluted. Sometimes you need to dig quite a bit before getting to the point of what they are trying to say.

This was even more apparent when I got a job working for an extremely well funded online startup. They were looking for someone who could speak to a US audience. Great, I thought, that is right up my alley. It, however, wasn’t as easy as that. While they didn’t care what spelling I used, they cared about another aspect of perceived correctness, phrasing.

I am fairly confident in my ability to write compelling copy, but when I was told that they couldn’t “feel” what I was writing, I honestly had no idea what they meant. The point of the website was to have people sign up for books under a pay-what-you-want model. Since their model was unnecessarily complicated, I decided to write simple, straightforward and to the point copy that would get people excited to read the books we had on our site. Take note that it was hard to find quality authors who agreed to have their books available for free on an untested website. No established author was jumping at the opportunity to be included. So you see the problem here, right? I have a small number of obscure books that are hard to sell at the best of times, and a model that doesn’t really compel potential readers to download them.

As I said, Polish is a flowery language and marketing text is skewed to wordy paragraphs. Of course they couldn’t understand that what took them a paragraph to write, took me a sentence. While I was trying to be sympathetic to their thinking, I admit I was surprised that they didn’t trust my expertise even though they had seen my portfolio and references.

I lasted nine months at that job before it became very clear that I couldn’t work under those conditions. The funny thing is that everyone I worked with spoke English to some degree. They weren’t bad at it, they just weren’t native speakers and therefore didn’t truly understand its essence.

The longer I lived in Europe, the more I understood where a lot of this was coming from. All too often I saw people teaching English when all they had taken were a few classes. How can someone who hasn’t spent years immersed in a language be prepared to teach it? While I am comfortable writing, and will happily edit a piece for someone, I don’t pretend that I can teach the language.

I’m curious if any other language is treated the same way? Depending on where you are in the world, the spelling might be different, the words might mean different things, and there are people with a passable grasp of it, posing as instructors.

Some day, maybe automated translation will solve all these problems. Maybe. For now, I will happily stick with my version of this ever evolving language.

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