the fiction of

S.M. Figgs

YA Fantasy · New York City

Stories about complicated girls, hidden magic, and the grief that transforms into love.

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"Grief is the clearest example of magic — because it is love transformed."
S.M. Figgs
Featured Book
Filomena and the Fool book cover

Filomena
and the Fool

She wants one last conversation with her mother.
He wants to stop searching for the girl he's loved across lifetimes.

Eighteen-year-old Filomena Farisi would give anything to speak to her dead mother one last time. The Fool, an immortal spirit from the world inside tarot, would give anything to stop searching for the girl he has loved and lost across lifetimes.

When a living version of the Fool crashes into Filomena's life, he leads her into the hidden magical underworld of New York City — abandoned stations, old theaters, sealed gardens — where the Guided Temples once connected humans to tarot spirits, and where her mother walked this same path years before.

As the temples reveal the truth of her mother's bargain, Filomena learns that every true ask requires a sacrifice. But the Fool can save her from the price — only by giving up the one piece of himself he has never been willing to lose.

YA Fantasy Slow-burn Romance Hidden NYC Tarot Mother-Daughter Grief

Book one of a planned duology · Currently seeking literary representation

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The World

New York, Hidden

Somewhere beneath the city you know, another city breathes.

Filomena drawing on a fire escape under the full moon
Filomena — grieving artist, light bearer
Filomena's sketchbook and headphones on a subway seat
The city that hides its magic in plain sight
Filomena and Jaden on school steps in autumn
Filomena & Jaden — the friendship at the heart of it all
The Author
Filomena — character art

About Me

S.M. Figgs is the pseudonym of Shrien Alshabasy — a first-generation, Egyptian-American YA Fantasy novelist living in New York City.

Her writing centers on young people navigating grief, self-discovery, and love. Filomena and the Fool is her debut novel — the book she would have clung to at eleven years old, when she lost her mother suddenly.

She is deeply committed to young people and their stories. As a writing mentor with Girls Write Now, she supports youth writers in finding their voices. She has taught critical reading and storytelling as a classroom instructor, and her work at EdFund — an organization bridging research and policy to improve how public schools are funded — centers equitable access to knowledge and resources for all communities.

She believes that young people deserve stories that meet them in their grief, their magic, and their becoming — and she writes with that reader in mind.

Tin House 2024 YA Fiction Workshop Roots, Wounds, Words 2024 Retreat Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Writing Mentor — Girls Write Now Published in Generations Journal, Chronogram Magazine, York Literary Review Poem shortlisted — Palette Poetry 2024 Love & Eros Prize Read at the MET, the New School, Scholastic Auditorium BA & MA in English Literature · Director of Outreach & Engagement, EdFund — bridging research & policy to improve how we fund public schools
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Contact

For literary representation inquiries, reader mail, or just to say hello.

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