As a high school teacher for nearly 20 years, Uzma Jalaluddin is grateful to have a job she loves, but she always yearned for something more: the opportunity to tell stories that she's uniquely suited to tell.

"Even from when I was a child, I knew that I wanted to be a writer," Jalaluddin told Q's Tom Power in an interview. "I just didn't know how to break into this publishing industry."

In 2018, Jalaluddin's dream came true when she released her debut novel, Ayesha At Last. That was followed by Hana Khan Carries On in 2021. Now, she's back with her third book, Much Ado About Nada — a second-chance romance story inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion.

"The inspiration was actually this idea of female ambition," said Jalaluddin. "I really wanted to explore what female ambition looks like, specifically in South Asian and Muslim communities. I think I was probably, as a writer, thinking about my own ambition."

Much Ado About Nada follows Nada Syed, a young Muslim woman who's approaching 30, filled with regrets and getting pressure from her mother to find a husband. When Nada is forced to attend a Muslim convention, she runs the risk of revealing a secret past involving an intense on-and-off relationship she once had with a childhood frenemy.

"Even though Nada is not that old, she's only 30 — she's not even 30, she's turning 30 — I like the idea of someone trying something on for size when they were younger, not feeling as if it was a right fit, or they weren't ready for that at that point in their life, and then coming back to it maybe when they've grown up a little bit," said the author.

As one of the first authors to write a Muslim romance novel in Canada, Jalaluddin said she wants to help correct the lack of representation for the Muslim community, specifically in the rom-com genre.

"I just kept thinking, 'Where's the Muslim Bridget Jones? Where are our hilarious stories about love? Our mishaps on the way to a happily ever after arranged marriage?'" she said. "There's such an opportunity here to tell and share these really funny stories. And in the absence of those stories, other stories have rushed in and have painted a picture of Muslims, of South Asians, of immigrants that I think are very negative and toxic and have had real-life negative consequences.

"The lack of stories about communities can lead to hatred, can lead to violent actions, can lead to virulent Islamophobia, and in my own small way by making jokes about Muslims and kind of inviting my reader — whether they identify as being Muslim, or Indian, or South Asian, or whatever — they could possibly feel seen."

The full interview with Uzma Jalaluddin is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. She also tells us what it's like having her first two books optioned for film (one by Mindy Kaling). Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.