Meet Asmae Fahmy | Journalist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Asmae Fahmy and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Asmae, can you tell us about a book that has had a meaningful impact on you?

“The Opposite of Loneliness” by Marina Keegan.

I’ve ordered this book (a collection of poems, essays, and short stories) on four different occasions, and it’s had the most meaningful impact on my life. I read it in college but I didn’t take it with me to my first post-grad internship in New York. I later bought it again from a street vendor in Times Square and re-read it on a nearby bench. I left that copy with a flight attendant because my luggage was overweight, only to buy it again before moving to Egypt, and later after coming back. I’m an avid reader, but I’ve never purchased any other book more than once. For some reason, this book just keeps finding me when I need it most. It somehow feels like I’ve found a friend in Marina – a cure to my own loneliness. Her prose is magical, beautiful, and tragic all at once, and though she passed away before she saw it published, to me, she always lives on – in my words, my drive, and apparently my Amazon purchases. In the bout of inspiration I get when I read the first essay in her book and remind myself to keep moving forward and keep believing in myself. Everything these days seems saturated in superficiality, and I find her when I want to hold on to something with a pulse. She simply creates this feeling that there is more, or that there can be more. That you can still make something happen in this world.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

Writing started as my lifeline. I turned to it in any crisis. It wasn’t always intentional or rhetorical – oftentimes, my words would be jotted down on the backs of receipts and torn napkins, because elementary school-me was not practical enough to carry a journal.

Initially, I focused on more creative outlets: songs, short stories, and poems. As I grew older, I started taking the narrative elements that I loved from fiction and transferring them to real stories. I joined my high school newspaper sophomore year and became editor-in-chief my senior year. This was around the time the Arab Spring revolutions started, and I remember seeing a stark contrast between what was portrayed online and what was relayed to me through my Egyptian and Syrian family members. I started telling the stories of those protests through the people who lived them, and I think that’s when my obsession with journalism really flourished. Later in college, I joined both the newspaper and the magazine, and ended up becoming editor of the magazine my senior year – which probably stands as the most rewarding experience of my life.

Throughout my career, I’ve been lucky to work in multiple sides of journalism: online and print, magazine and newspaper, and photography, design, and video. At the heart of it, though, I’ve always wanted to tell people’s stories. It’s so easy to be misled by numbers. But stories – whether told through words or captured in photos – show a different side to any crisis. They highlight the humanity behind the headlines.

I’ve been a medical journalist at Verywell Health for the past year, and one thing I’ve been ardently focused on is telling the stories of long-haulers: the growing number of people who never truly recover from COVID-19, and are instead left with lingering diseases and disabilities. So many of them have been gaslight by both the media and medicine, and I think it’s imperative to give them a voice: not just to document their stories, but to protect the next victims, before it’s too late.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I personally love the sleepier spots of the city. Obviously, we’d go to the beach – Sunny Isles Beach is my personal favorite, but I would probably take them to the 1 Hotel in South Beach so they’re not denied the full Miami experience. Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden is lovely year-round, so I would definitely spend an afternoon there, and then watch the sunset at Matheson Hammock Park across the street. I would also explore the Design District with them and soak in the skyline at a local rooftop. And of course, the food! White truffle pizza at Farinelli 1937 in the Grove, or basically anything on the Zuma menu.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I owe so much of who I am to the people around me. My mom is the most important person in my life and someone who has shown me over and over again the meaning of unconditional love. My grandpa, Mahmoud Ali Fahmy, is the person who first taught me the power of words, and more importantly, the power of kindness and compassion. Kurt Panton: my high school newspaper advisor/teacher, is the reason I’m a journalist today. He taught me how to do more than create inside the confines of the inverted pyramid, how to be bold in everything you do, and how to turn your team into a family. That knowledge translated into pretty much every team I’ve been a part of since, especially at Distraction Magazine, where I got to work and learn from people who became my best friends. I’ve been incredibly lucky to be surrounded by amazing family members, friends, colleagues, and editors over the years.

Website: www.asmaefahmy.com

Instagram: @writtenbymae