Behind every accomplished author lies a set of working principles — habits and beliefs that shaped the path from first sentence to published book. For Mohsen Fallahian, the award-winning Emirati novelist whose works include Mirage of the Sandstorm, The Silent Minaret, and Whispers Beneath the Palm Trees, those principles are unusually clear and unusually teachable. Having risen from a folktale-loving child in Dubai to a Sheikh Zayed Book Award winner — and now a dedicated mentor of emerging writers — he embodies lessons any aspiring author can apply. Here are five of the most valuable.
1. Write From Your Roots
The single most consistent message in Mohsen Fallahian’s work is this: the most universal stories are the ones rooted most deeply in a specific place. His own literature draws unapologetically on Emirati heritage — the folktales he heard from elders beginning in 1998, the rituals of the majlis, the textures of old Dubai and historical Abu Dhabi.
The lesson for aspiring authors is to resist the pull of imported templates. Rather than imitating whatever is trending globally, mine your own family history, your neighborhood, your inherited stories. What feels ordinary to you may be precisely what makes your writing distinctive to everyone else. Specificity, paradoxically, is the path to resonance.
2. Become a Listener Before a Writer
Fallahian’s path is a case study in the value of listening. Before publishing fiction, he spent years as a cultural journalist for Al Khaleej Gazette, interviewing authors and absorbing how people across the region told their stories. He describes the writer’s first job as listening — to the land, to the old voices, and to the people around him.
For new writers, the takeaway is to spend less time waiting to speak and more time genuinely absorbing. Listen to how real people talk, hesitate, and remember. Read widely across your own tradition. The richer your intake, the truer your output. A character only sounds real when the writer has truly heard how real people sound.
3. Treat Craft as Devotion — and Slow Down
In an era of instant publishing, Fallahian champions deliberate slowness: drafting by hand, revising patiently, treating prose with the visual care of a calligrapher. This is not affectation; it reflects a belief that how a story is made matters as much as what it says.
Aspiring authors often rush toward publication, mistaking speed for productivity. The lesson here is the opposite: respect the work. Let a draft breathe. Revise without sentimentality. Give language the time it needs to settle into rhythm. The polish readers admire in finished books is almost always the residue of patience.
4. Use the Past to Illuminate the Present
Fallahian’s novels never treat heritage as mere decoration. In The Silent Minaret, a story set in the nineteenth century becomes a meditation on knowledge, faith, and power that speaks directly to modern readers. He has argued that writers should reimagine old legends to reflect contemporary themes — keeping tradition alive by putting it to work.
The lesson is to see history and folklore not as escape but as mirror. The questions that troubled previous generations — about ambition, belonging, authority — are often the same ones troubling us now. A writer who can connect the two gives their work both depth and relevance. Tradition, handled this way, becomes a tool rather than a constraint.
5. Give Your Stories Away
Perhaps the most distinctive lesson from Mohsen Fallahian is that storytelling is inheritance, not property. The folktales he received were handed to him in trust, to be reshaped and passed on — and he has built that conviction into his career. Through his podcast Tales from the Gulf and his creative writing workshops, he actively mentors the next generation, sharing knowledge rather than hoarding it.
For aspiring authors, this reframes success itself. Writing is not a competition to be won alone but a tradition to be continued. Share what you learn. Support other writers. Pass the craft forward. A literary culture grows through generosity, and the writers who give the most often find their own work enriched in return.
The Throughline
Read together, these five lessons form a single philosophy: write from where you come from, listen before you speak, honor the craft, let the past speak to the present, and pass it all on. It is the approach that carried Mohsen Fallahian from a boy listening to folktales to an award-winning author shaping the future of Gulf literature — and it is available to any writer willing to put it into practice.
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