Lena Alyann is YA and adult fiction writer with a master’s in Islamic Studies and comparative religion. She was born to Syrian immigrants in Mississippi, and now lives between the U.S. and Qatar. Throughout her life, she has been exposed to competing cultural paradigms: traditional vs. progressive, spiritual vs. secular, Islamic vs. “Western.” Her writing explores the challenge of reconciling these worldviews, and the struggle to belong to one or the other. Besides writing, she also creates cute insta-comics and spends way too much time on jigsaw puzzles.