Hi, my name is Sadia. From a bird’s eye view, I am a writer based in Chicago, freshly graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a BFA degree in Film & Television Screenwriting. I primarily write screenplays and short stories, but I’m no stranger to poetry or journalistic essays either.

Up close, however, I nurture a personal portfolio (which you’ve discovered) called the “thefigwasp.” You may be thinking: what does the fig wasp stand for? And I’ll tell you. Figs are some of the oldest cultivated fruits in the world, and the story of the fig wasp begins at the center of a fig itself. Female fig wasps make a perilous journey burrowing into the heart of a fig, not only to pollinate the fruit, but to lay her eggs. In the process, she scrapes off her antennae, wings, and freedom—until she instinctually crawls to her fertile deathbed.

The fig wasp is a pseudo-identity I’ve taken on as a storyteller. The cycle of the fig wasp’s life is much like the cycle of writing; it takes great upheaval and sacrifice to create a new story. Not every work survives. Even the fig wasp herself dies, again and again, only to indulge the cycle to no end. Here death is transformative, creative, insightful, and most importantly, fertilizing—for the soul I bear as a visionary, and for greater human consciousness and the stories we all contribute to.