Nadia Shammas

Nadia Shammas is a Palestinian-American comics and games writer whose work lives at the intersection of identity, memory, and empire—and she’s only getting started. Raised in Brooklyn and now based in Toronto, Shammas grew up reading manga on the floor of her local comic shop (Galaxy Comics, where she credits the managers for letting her read whatever she wanted for free), devouring everything from Fullmetal Alchemist and Death Note to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and Alan Moore’s complete bibliography. The first book that made her want to write comics was Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon’s Daytripper—and that impulse never faded.

Her breakout graphic novel Squire (HarperCollins, 2022), co-created with artist Sara Alfageeh, won the 2022 Harvey Award for Best Children or Young Adult Graphic Novel. The story follows Aiza, a teenage girl training to become a knight in a fantasy world that mirrors the mechanics of real-world empire—how narratives are weaponized to justify conquest, how histories are rewritten to serve power, and how the young and hopeful must navigate the stories they’ve been told versus the truths they discover. It’s Middle Eastern fantasy with real teeth, drawing comparisons to Avatar: The Last Airbender and Fullmetal Alchemist while carving out entirely new territory.

Before Squire, Shammas made her name with CORPUS: A Comic Anthology of Bodily Ailments, a self-published 2018 anthology she created and curated after reflecting on her own experience as a Type 1 diabetic. The project grew from a personal question—why are there so few comics about illness?—into a Kickstarter campaign that drew over 200 submissions. She paid every contributor and built an anthology that gave voice to experiences rarely represented in comics. It was, in her words, the project that taught her she was capable.

Her work for major publishers includes Ms. Marvel: Stretched Thin (Scholastic, 2021), a middle-grade graphic novel about Kamala Khan navigating the pressures of school and superhero life with artist Nabi H. Ali; Where Black Stars Rise (Tor Nightfire, 2022), an adult eldritch horror graphic novella co-created with Marie Enger; and work for Marvel and DC Comics including a story in DC Pride. She also contributed to All We Ever Wanted: Stories of a Better World (A Wave Blue World, 2018), the Ringo Award-nominated anthology of optimistic sci-fi that The New York Times highlighted as one of the season’s essential comics.

Beyond comics, Shammas has expanded into game narrative design. She contributed to Thirsty Suitors (Outerloop Studios), a story-rich action-adventure game about family, culture, and heartbreak, and co-created This Is Normal, an edugame teaching self-managed abortion. Her upcoming work includes Confetti Realms (Mad Cave Studios, 2023) with artist Karnessa and Skinscribing, a game project exploring identity through body modification.

As she told Fanbase Press: “The biggest turning point in my life was realizing that all the histories I knew are simply narratives and are no more necessarily factual or honest in their intent than any novel or book I’ve read.” That perspective—rooted in her Palestinian heritage and sharpened by a lifetime of questioning who gets to write the story—runs through everything she creates. Perfect for fans of Middle Eastern fantasy, stories about dismantling empire, and comics that take identity seriously without losing their sense of adventure.