Trystyng is not trysting. Well, it is, but not exactly. It’s Lewis Carroll’s verbification of a tryst that occurs between a 42 year old bachelor and an uninitiated ghost assigned to haunt his house. Oh, and Trystyng is also where Tayyba Kanwal blogs.

I create children's literature and screenplays. (In a parallel universe, I exist as a project manager with Sapient Corp., an interactive business technology consultancy.)

August 2009 - Totally randomly created the website for Roberts Elementary School, Houston, TX

March 2009 - Short story and poem bought by Carus Publishing for their award-winning Spider Magazine

December 2007 - Screenplay bought by SB Productions of Vancouver, Canada

It's amazing what an occasional Googling of oneself will turn up. Some time in August 2008, The New Yorker magazine had asked readers which literary figures might serve as a model for current world leaders. Apparently, my response was their favorite. If you hate to click away from this absolutely riveting piece of news, here is what they said: "Earlier in the week, we asked our readers to tell us which literary figures might serve as role models for current world leaders, starting with Obama as Mr. Darcy and Gordon Brown as Heathcliff. Here’s our favorite, from Tayyba Kanwal, of Houston, Texas: 'On the topic of current leaders and literary heroes, President Bush could be none other than Mr. Bumble [from “Oliver Twist”]. He is the parish beadle. He runs the orphanage. His English is atrocious. And he makes us laugh!' " Do you suppose this is my window of opportunity for submitting that short story to them? Do you think they're still swooning under the influence of my reader response? Lesson learned - Google yourself at least once a month. You never know who might turn out to be your latest fan.

Tayyba Kanwal
Houston, TX, USA
(SCBWI Member)

Oh, and I can be reached at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , found on http://facebook.com/tayyba and followed on http://twitter.com/tayyba