About

Professional Bio:

A.D. Ghani was born and raised in Illinois. She holds a B.S. in Elementary Education and is currently a licensed elementary school teacher who believes that emotional intelligence is as instrumental to lifelong joy and success as academic skills are. She is the recipient of numerous competitive scholarships, including the prestigious Fulbright award, and her work earned second place in the 2021 state-wide Illinois Emerging Writers poetry competition. Her debut picture book, BABA PALOOZA, releases Spring 2026 through Abrams Books for Young Readers. When not teaching her wonderful students or thinking up ways to help diversify children’s literature, she can be found traveling or posting about all things mental health and educator life on Instagram (@authoradghani). 

Reminders:

Thank you for joining me in my small corner of the internet. I know that after reading a professional bio like the one above, there have been times that I’ve felt worried that I’m not doing enough. I’d like to take this moment to share a few reminders here, in case you feel the same way.

These include: All humans are equal in inherent worth. No amount of accomplishments can increase or decrease your self-worth (for more on the difference between self-worth and self-esteem, watch Kristin Neff’s Ted Talk). All humans, regardless of outward accomplishments, are equally worthy of respect and wonderful treatment. It is extremely common for people to not accomplish goals following societal timelines. When you accomplish the goal you dream about, it will feel no less wonderful simply because it occured at a different time than desired – in fact, it may feel even better (for example, I wanted to become published by the end of high school, and when that didn’t pan out, by the end of college. At both those times in my life, I would not have been able to effectively handle the additional stressors of public life, criticisms around my work, rejections at all stages, and more that being an author involves – things that I am infinitely better equipped to handle now and by the time my debut book releases). Simultaneously, though, allow space for any grief around the painful experience of wanting something that you do not have, which is valid and deserves to be compassionately tended to. Pretending that it doesn’t hurt or isn’t difficult wouldn’t be honoring your experience.

Additionally, there are more things the internet will not get to see or know about me than there are things that they will. The internet does not know the ratio of good to bad moments I have experienced in life or the depths and valleys of the specific difficulties I have encountered thus far. I am an imperfect and vulnerable human being who is as susceptible to failure, pain, sorrow, and tragedy as anyone else. My bio is my highlights reel and covers maybe 5% of my complex, vast life. If you want to be an author one day and are reading my bio wishing for some or all aspects to be mimiced in your own resume, know that I used to browse author websites and dream of becoming an author one day, too. Dream obsessively, in fact. The roles that luck and privilege have cannot be denied in an industry like publishing. However, there is nothing inherently greater about me as a person that allowed my dream to become my reality. I hope you continue dreaming. I will dream for your success alongside you. There is room for all of us here.

[Further Reading: Two culturally-informed articles on scarcity mindset, here and here – note that the bottom halves are hidden behind paywalls | Another article | The Science of Stuck — a wonderful book covering the different domains that comprise quality mental health, and especially how laziness is not real and procrastination is not a choice, written by a licensed trauma therapist | Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma Workbook — a workbook under 200 pages that offers compassionate insights into how “self-sabotaging” behaviors that pose as barriers to people experiencing what they want in life are actually often resilient survival adaptations that developed as trauma responses.]