Come Back by Famya Faiz is shortlisted for the 2026 Author of Tomorrow Award, 16-21 Category.

About Come Back: 

When you are suspended between all that you love and all that you want, the distance between them is exactly 400 kilometres.

One man, one orbit, and the earthshine pooling gold across his window, Come Back is a story about longing for the mundane when you are surrounded by the extraordinary, and what it means to see home from somewhere it cannot reach you.

An Interview with Famya: 

WNSF: What is your favourite book?

Famya: Harry Potter was the foundation, I think, for almost everyone who reads seriously. J.K. Rowling constructed something so internally consistent with its own hierarchies, its own grief, its own logic and made it feel completely lived-in. Very few books have done that for me in the same way. Since it's so digestible as a reader, it just pulls you in. Animal Farm I love for completely different reasons – Orwell says enormous things in very few words and I think about that a lot when I'm writing, especially in my poetry.

WNSF: Who is your favourite author? Or one who has inspired you and why?

Famya: I genuinely can't name just one, which probably says something about where I am as a writer. Kazuo Ishiguro definitely holds weight on that list because of the way the narrator kind of circles around the most painful parts of the story without ever quite looking at them directly, and that restraint makes everything feel so much more impactful than just saying them explicitly and it makes the reader take on half the emotional labor which is probably why his stories are so strong.

WNSF: What is your favourite subject at school?

Famya: I do mostly technical subjects, sciences, with definite answers. I like the structure of that but English and creative subjects gave me the freedom to follow a thought somewhere unexpected and put it into fruition, into something textured and I really adore seeing that final piece of work develop from just a passing thought.

WNSF: What does 'adventure writing' mean to you? Why did you choose to try your hand at an adventure story?

Famya: I think what separates it from other kinds of writing is that it's decisive, which i am very much not. There are stories where I wish something had gone differently, and I've realised that feeling is actually a sign of good writing: it made a real decision and closed a door that I would have otherwise left open and explored a path into, but I think exploring this kind of writing helped me hone how I view the best take on the plot. For me personally, I was also drawn to it as a challenge. I take almost entirely stem subjects so there isn't much space in my academic life to stray from a strict, structured path and the writing I'd done before this was almost exclusively poetry, which is its own discipline but a very different one. You can live inside compression and lyricism and not have to follow a plot anywhere. I wanted to push myself to write something longer with a proper narrative arc, without the safety net of a line break to hide behind. Prose requires a lot more offering from the writer as opposed to the understanding from the reader.

WNSF: If you could ask an author anything, what would you want to know?

Famya: I'd want to know how they live with the gap between the story they could see at the start and what actually ended up on the page. I think every writer knows that feeling, that slight grief of the finished thing being a degree less than the idea of it. Also, for longer novels, progression and how they drive the story forward without tiring out the words or clouding the plot.

WNSF: Who would you consider one of your heroes and why?

Famya: My father. I've tried to write about him in poetry and in prose and I've never quite managed it, which probably tells you more about how much he means to me than anything I could actually say here. He's someone who has given a lot quietly, without making it a thing, and I think that kind of person is harder to find and even harder to write about than any hero, fictional or otherwise, I've
come across.

WNSF: What is the most adventurous thing you would like to do, or place you would like to visit and why?

Famya: I want to actually live, properly. Travel to different countries and learn languages and understand cultures from the inside rather than just passing through them. I'd also love to become a public figure at some point, a model, someone who represents things that matter. What's a bigger adventure than life? Maybe skydiving or getting really good at multiple sports and just throwing myself into them and entering their most extreme forms of competition.

WNSF: Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

Famya: Mostly everyday life, honestly. I have a notes app full of half-finished ideas, little observations, phrases that came to me at random times. I have a note on my phone of dead end worlds with places and scenarios and versions of life I've thought about and want to write about one day, things that probably won't go anywhere but feel worth holding onto. Inspiration for me is less of a lightning bolt moment and more like accumulation, and then at some point there's enough there to actually do something with. This was actually how I was inspired to write Come Back. I had Reid Wiseman's quote written on my phone the day the crew came back from orbit and that was the start.

WNSF: If you could time travel, where would you go and why?

Famya: The early 2000s, without question. I wasn't born yet so I never actually got to experience it but everything about that era looks like it was having the best time - the fashion, the low rise jeans and the tiny bags and the lip gloss and the velour tracksuits, and the technology was new enough to feel exciting but not so consuming that everyone was staring at a screen. everything was shot on a camera that made the colours look slightly golden, so perhaps my view is through a literal rose-coloured lens, but it seems like a beautiful time nonetheless.

WNSF: What three words would you use to describe your story?

Famya: Weightless. Ordinary. Earthbound.

WNSF: Congratulations on your wonderful story, and good luck for the next stage of the competition!