Soniah is a lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA). She was the 2020 keynote speaker at the Jane Austen Festival held by JASNA Kentucky and a keynote speaker at the Jane Austen Summer Program Conference on ‘Pride & Prejudice and its Afterlives’. Soniah is plenary panelist at the 2020 JASNA Annual General Meeting and has spoken on Jane Austen and her global appeal, and writing a parallel retelling, at book festivals, libraries and venues internationally and across the US. Soniah is a frequent featured speaker at JASNA regional events including JASNA NORCAL where she gave the Jane Austen Birthday Toast. Soniah served on JASNA’s Diversity, Inclusion and Equity Committee and she served as a Jane Austen Literacy Ambassador for the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation where she also was a judge for the Jane Austen Writers Contest. Soniah hosted the 200th Jane Austen Anniversary Commemoration Book Club for Austen novels. Nerd Daily hails Unmarriageable as the ‘gold standard of Pride and Prejudice adaptations’ and The Jane Austen Centre in Bath called it ‘a wonderful experience’. Austenprose declared Unmarriageable ‘a dream retelling’ and Shelf Awareness says ‘if Jane Austen lived in modern day Pakistan, this is the version of Pride and Prejudice she might have written.’ Professor Devoney Looser of The Making of Jane Austen says Unmarriageable is a ‘brilliant fictional homage to Pride and Prejudice.’ While Soniah adores Pride and Prejudice, her favourite Austen novel is Mansfield Park. On screen she loves the 1995 BBC ‘Pride and Prejudice’, Emma Thompson’s ‘Sense and Sensiblity’, Whit Stillman’s ‘Love and Friendship’ adapted from Lady Susan, and ITV’s time travelling ‘Lost in Austen. Her favourite Austen characters are Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Knightley.
