Farah Naz Rishi: On the Strange and Faintly Absurd Shape of Grief
In this interview, author Farah Naz Rishi discusses how grief intertwined with her most recent novel, how her agent surprised her, and more.
Farah Naz Rishi (she/they) is the author of I Hope You Get This Message and Sorry for the Inconvenience. A Pakistani American writer and voice actor, she received her BA in English from Bryn Mawr College, her JD from Lewis & Clark Law School, and her love of weaving stories from the Odyssey Writing Workshop. When Farah is not writing, she’s probably hanging out with video game characters. Rishi lives in Philadelphia.
In this interview, Farah discusses how grief intertwined with her most recent novel, how her agent surprised her, and much more.
Name: Farah Naz Rishi
Literary agent: Hannah Bowman
Book title: The Flightless Birds of New Hope
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Release date: January 1, 2026
Genre/category: Literary fiction
Previous titles: I Hope You Get This Message; It All Comes Back to You; Sorry for the Inconvenience; If You’re not the One
Elevator pitch for the book: The Flightless Birds of New Hope follows three estranged siblings who reunite after their parents’ deaths and set out on a cross-country road trip to recover the family’s missing cockatoo. As they chase the bird who once commanded all their parents’ devotion, the journey forces them to confront old resentments, unfinished grief, and the possibility of finding their way back to one another.
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What prompted you to write this book?
I began writing The Flightless Birds of New Hope after my brother died. In the weeks that followed, my grief latched onto birds in a way I didn’t fully understand at the time—I read about them obsessively, watched them, noticed them everywhere, as if paying close attention might bring some kind of order to what I’d lost. Around then, I saw an elderly man in my neighborhood walking his cockatoo, the bird perched calmly on his arm, and the image stayed with me. It was tender and strange and faintly absurd, which felt true to the shape grief had taken in my life.
That image became a point of entry. I started thinking about what happens when love becomes a fixation, when devotion fills the space loss leaves behind, and how families reorganize themselves around that kind of need. From there, the novel grew outward—toward siblings shaped by caretaking, toward long-held resentments and unspoken loyalties, toward a road trip that forces movement where there has been stasis. Writing the book was less about resolving grief than about living alongside it, and trying to understand how people find their way back to one another after something essential has gone missing.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
Sometimes, the path to publication is one covered in briars and traps, taking years to reach the end. Writing this book, however, was a fever dream; I told my agent, Hannah, about this ridiculous book idea, and to my surprise (and horror), she appreciated the weirdness of it and gave me the greenlight. And as if a dam had broken, I poured myself into the book over the span of about two months. I joked that Aden and his siblings wrote the book for me, and I merely followed them on the road trip, documenting their every move.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
This is my fifth book, so at this point, very little surprises me when it comes to the publishing process (ha). But I suppose what did surprise me was how much room I was given to let the book stay strange. I’m very grateful for that.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
This book surprised me in how much it asked me to get out of my own way. I tend to overthink—to resolve and dissect emotions before allowing them to fully exist—and that often leads me to protect my characters, steering their thoughts and choices instead of letting them speak for themselves. Aden, Aliza, and Sammy were very different from my usual characters, and Aden in particular begins the book in a way that isn’t especially likable, which required a different kind of trust.
With this book, I tried to let the siblings be messier and less managed—to let them be feral, to let them think on the page, and to surprise me. Paradoxically, that made the novel easier to write than any of my others. Once I stopped trying to control them, the story knew where it was going.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
Honestly, I’m not sure. But I hope the book encourages readers to love a little more intentionally. Not as a feeling, but as an action. To call the people they miss but keep meaning to reach out to. To linger a little longer in the small, ordinary moments that are easy to rush past. To say the thing while there’s still time to say it.
If the book offers anything, I hope it’s a quiet reminder that love is both precious and easily deferred—and that what we most often regret isn’t loving too much, but waiting too long.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
“I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding” is a cliché for a reason. Don’t forget to breathe. Remember that writing, for all the pressure around it, is still an art. Trust the story you’re trying to tell, even when it feels small or strange. And don’t be afraid to let yourself feel—those emotions have a way of making themselves known on the page, whether you invite them or not.
