This International Women's Day, we're celebrating the brilliant women whose work happens in our notebooks, with a series of 3 interviews.
First up, to mark World Book Day, we spoke to award-winning author Huma Qureshi, who plans her novels in Mark+Fold notebooks.
Huma is known for her poignant fiction and memoir, including Playing Games (2023), Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love (2021), and How We Met: A Memoir of Love and Other Misadventures (2021). She frequently writes about themes of messy relationships, love and loss, offering both short stories and deeply personal non-fiction. She lives in London and kindly invited us into her home writing studio, where her brilliant work happens.
Tell us a bit about your workspace
I call it my writing room, because office sounds too clinical. It's a really lovely little corner of the house, looking out over the garden. It used to be a garage, hence why the the ceiling is all vaulted. When we were designing this room, we had this fun idea that the bookshelves would go right up to the top, but then that really freaked me out when it came to it, so this way I can actually reach the books on my shelf! I've always lived in places with limited space, and as a result, I've always had this habit of being quite streamlined with my books. I know it sounds weird to say it as an author, but I can't hold on to books endlessly.
So, this is where it all happens. This is where I plan my books. It's where I do some of the writing for my books (though not always, because quite often I like to have a change of scene). So, I do a lot of writing out the house actually as well. But a lot of the planning and the drafting happens here, right here in my notebooks, my computer.
Walk us through the notebooks on your desk
I have a new notebook for every book, so I have one on the go now for my fifth book which I'm currently writing. This one is where I'm working things out - taking notes, following through on ideas and themes, a couple of pages of messy draft writing, just to see what happens and how it evolves. Then I have another ongoing notebook where I collect meaningful quotes and things from books I've read that I find interesting from an author's point of view. And then I have my diary (I went for the Navy Linen Diary this year). That keeps me on track for everything. It's all colour-coded, and I love it.
And right up on the top shelf, I still have my very first Mark+Fold notebook from back in the day. At the time, I used to write in pencil, so that I could rub out mistakes as I went. And this is where I started working out the notes for How We Met, which is my second published book.
Do you have much Mark+Fold in the house?
Now that I stop and think about it, I've got an embarrassingly huge amount of Mark+Fold in the house! In the kitchen we have our family Week Planner. This is just for everything for every week, all the kids' stuff, all the food stuff, who has homework, when it's due. I find it really satisfying to rip them off in a chunk so I like to wait for a month to finish. This is where everyone comes to check what they need, like 'Don't forget your bananas for your cookery lesson.' So that's like the mothership.
And the Wall Planner is new for me this year. I've always had one, but for 2026 I wanted something really simple that wouldn't overwhelm the space. So naturally, Mark+Fold was my top choice. It's a lovely way to look at the year and figure out what weekends are free and how the months are filling up.
Tell us about your earliest memories of stationery, and how that flows into your work now
Early memories of stationery? Paperchase! As a teenage girl, probably younger than a teenager, actually. That run-up to going back to school in September was my favourite thing. Getting my pencil case organised, or getting a new one, having everything sharpened and a nice clean eraser. I just loved it. I think that feeling has never really gone away.
I did always love writing in notebooks, and I used to hide them because I didn't want anyone in my family to find them. I love how when you're younger, you're not afraid of making marks on the page, whereas I know even now, I will correct things in my diary, and I'll have that really neat and tidy. But that, I think, is just the way that I work now. So, I do try and embrace the crossings-out on the page, but equally, I just get really deep satisfaction from being able to fill the page and and just to be really immersed in it. It's a way for me to find my way into a story. And I find it so much more freeing to just explore an idea — from a tiny seed, just from something someone said or a line that I've heard in a film or whatever. The tiniest thing can get you into something else deeper, and I find it so much more freeing to do that on paper than on the computer.
As a woman working in journalism, and now as a writer, what barriers have you had to overcome as a woman?
When I was starting in journalism, I was acutely aware of being in a pat-on-the-head environment — being perceived as younger than I was, patronised, not really given time and space to put forward my thoughts. It's different now that I write books, because I don't have to endure that day-to-day. It's just me and my thoughts and my wonderful agent and my wonderful editors.
The challenge for me is that people are all too quick to judge on my name. My name reflects my Pakistani heritage, though it's an Arabic name. People don't even need to see me to make assumptions, and I find that incredibly difficult. People will have a perception of what they think I should be writing and the stories I should be telling, when really all I want to write about is what moves me, and what might move someone else.
If your teenage self were sitting next to you on the sofa right now, what would you say to her?
I would tell her to hang on in there. Even though it doesn't feel remotely possible, it is going to happen. Even though you feel like the unlikeliest person to fulfil your ambitions and your dreams, it will be you. You just have to believe that, and wait, and be patient.
I'd put my hand on her knee and tell her to slow down. And I'd tell her not to be so sad all the time. That it's okay. It'll be okay.
