Welcome

Come on in, it's so cosy here!

Ta-da! Welcome to Scenes From Home - by me, award-winning author Huma Qureshi. Come on in! I’m so happy you’re here.

Some of you may have known my previous Substack, Reading Alice & Others, which was something else entirely; a short story club-of-sorts where I’d write long pensive essays on short stories. It was a nerdy and earnest literary endeavour, and whilst I’m glad I did it for a short while, it was not exactly sustainable. I put an awful lot of work into it and did for a time enjoy it, but as I was mostly reading serious stories it started to feel mildly depressing, a little too insular, and at times felt quite heavy to write. And though it still exists, I put it on pause whilst figuring out what I did want to do with this space. Now, just in time for a brand new year, I think I have figured it out.

And what I’ve decided is… I don’t want to have to pick a niche and be in ‘author’ mode online all the time, which can get quite tiring. Don’t get me wrong, I have written four books and hope to write many more, I love being an author and I am very grateful to all my readers and the book-related experiences I’ve had, but there are many other parts to me, aside from writing; many other hats I wear. I’m an interior designer in-training (studying for a qualification at KLC School of Design), I’m a mother of three, I’m a reader, I love to bake, even if I have to be gluten free (grr). I spend way too long on RightMove and The Modern House when I’m supposed to be writing. I love dolls houses and Josef Frank wallpaper and movies that make me feel good and also cry. I’m a sucker for proper knitwear and gorgeous skincare but I don’t know how to use a hairdryer or do my make up properly (can someone teach me, please?).

These are in many ways insignificant little things about me that you don’t need to know. But it’s the little things that say the most, I find. For a long time I have always compartmentalised my life online, and I’ve been writing online for nearly twenty years. Back in the day, I was a news journalist at The Guardian and Observer but in my spare time I wrote an interiors blog called Her Little Place. I loved that blog, so, so much and couldn’t wait to get home and play with it. It did remarkably well and was quite successful in the sweet interiors Blogger world of the early 2000s, and I kept it going for years, but I used to hide it from everyone I worked with. I was mortified instead of happy when, at some point, a colleague discovered it in a round up of best interiors blogs. My point is, I learnt to hide the softer parts, the bits that other people thought were fluff, because I felt like I should.

But that doesn’t feel right to me anymore; because more and more, I’m finding all the parts fit together, they are all part of my story. And in a way, all the things I’m interested in, all the things that make me ‘me’ from one day to the next, inform the way I write and my storytelling also. So, I’m listening to my intuition on this, and turning this Substack home of mine into something joyful, by taking the wider road rather than the narrower one.

You might be wondering what can you expect to find here: well, I wish I could say I could answer that with a well-thought out plan about content but how about we just see how it goes, if you’re happy enough to stick along for the ride (as an aside, I do hate the word content!). I like the idea of writing as and when, snippets about daily life, from my home to yours, written naturally without overthinking or editing. I like the idea of sharing all the things that I love and inspire me, not just books and stories and films as I’ve done before, but also in my other great joy, interiors and design. By which I really mean, shopping for nice things for my home ;)

I think sharing what I love will in its own way share what home means to me too, whether that’s through a recipe for something I’ve baked with my children or a glimpse inside where I live or quite simply wallpaper I’ve fallen in love with! Maybe sometimes I’ll write something more meaningful, connected to feelings also… who knows. What I do know is that I will always be a writer, but here I want to share less about the art of writing, the act of it, and more just about, well, living.

My previous Substack publication used to be paid for, but I’ve decided to turn subscriptions off both here and there; if you want at any time to support with me a pledge as times goes on, then of course that would be lovely! But mainly I just want you to enjoy being here and getting to know me.

If you’re completely new here, then it would be remiss of me not to mention my books (!) which include the novel Playing Games, the short story collection Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love and the memoir How We Met: A Memoir of Love and Other Misadventures. As well as writing books, I teach writing courses over on my website. For the last several years, I’ve been writing monthly letters called Dear Huma, an agony aunt style newsletter, different to the writing you’ll find here, whereby I respond to subscribers’ questions, problems and dilemmas on writing and life; I’ve kept it off Substack because it feels a little more private that way, but if you’d like to find out more about it, you can do so here.

But like I said. This space isn’t all about that.

Less about the writing. More about the living. Thank you for letting me indulge in all the things I love!

With love,

Huma x