welcome

notes from an essayist, poet turned doctor

n’importe quoi

I first heard the phrase on a trip with a French speaking friend who was giving me impromptu French lessons as walked through the streets of Madrid. N'importe quoi means 'no matter what' and it's pronounced more like 'n'amporter kwah'. It’s used to talk about nothing and everything at all. My favorite way to use it perhaps, may be “je peux écrire sur n'importe quoi”—I can write about anything.

And I do write about anything and everything and nothing at all. By day, I am a doctor, but before then, and always, I have been a writer. Sometimes essays, sometimes poems, sometimes fiction. Lately I’ve been finding myself writing essays more than anything and made this substack to create space for those little scraps of ideas that don’t quite feel serious enough to live elsewhere, but still mean so much to me.

My writing has appeared in Time, NBC News, ABC News, LA Review of Books and more. You can find more of my work on my website.

In the meantime, if you want to hear from me in your inbox, I’d love if you subscribed.

-Mariam