IT'S been a very busy year for poet and author Nadine Aisha Jassat. When The Scots Magazine caught up with her, the Edinburgh-based writer had just returned from a "joy filled" trip to South Africa where she'd been on a book tour visiting schools, bookshops and libraries in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria with her first children's novel, The Stories Grandma Forgot. Now she's launching her second book, The Hidden Story of Estie Noor, a page-turning mystery novel about identity, friendship and learning to use your voice (out 9th May).
"One of the questions that children ask me a lot when I do school visits is, 'when did you know you wanted to be a writer?"" Nadine says.
"I think I was always meant to be a writer because I loved it from a very young age. The first book I ever wrote was when I was 12 years old! In terms of writing professionally, I worked in a completely different career for a time, and started doing writing workshops and just loved them.
"I really grew into my voice, and I grew into my confidence in the same way. I think I started out whispering 'I am a poet', and by the end, after years and years of encouragement from my peers and workshops and performances and publications, I got to the stage of being able to say 'I'm a poet!' with confidence."
The writer's first poetry collection, Let Me Tell You This, was published by Scottish publisher 404 Ink in 2019.
"I always felt that I wanted to tell stories in a full, broad sense. I wanted to tell them through poetry. I wanted to tell them through fiction. And I was already writing short stories and essays drawing on my own life for places like the anthology of essays It's Not About The Burqa.
"Then I had this voice of a young girl in my mind, who was living with her grandma with Alzheimer's. She was a mixed girl, who was trying to understand who she was. That was where The Stories Grandma Forgot began.
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Denne historien er fra June 2024-utgaven av The Scots Magazine.
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The Bliss Of A Bothy
After a strenuous walk, a mountain shelter can offer all you need
The Long Way Round
When you can only just see the stepping stones under a river in spate, it's time to re-think the route, as two Highland adventurers found out
The New Oyster Cult
A community is helping to restore the once rich biodiversity of Loch Craignish, one species at a time
A Poet's Sanctuary
Hidden on a hilltop, writer Dominic Cooper is inspired by the wild, stormy winters of the Ardnamurchan peninsula
A Rural Housing Crisis
Across Scotland, locals are being priced out and crowded out - but communities are now working hard to address the issue
A Historic Centre
Glasgow's Mercat Cross may not be as old as it appears but it's still seen many changes, along with an ebb and flow in prosperity
A Bird With A Brain
Jim's encounters with the raven in several northern countries have only increased his respect for its intellect and ingenuity
The Warrior King
On the 750th anniversary of his birth, Robert The Bruce's legacy as cultural keystone and historical enigma continues to fascinate
All Going Swimmingly
From Tutti Frutti to Shetland, Monarch Of The Glen to Granite Harbour, Dawn Steele's heart will always be in Scotland - and the sea
Following The Coos
The latest charity art trail aims to a-moos-e and delight visitors to Perth and Kinross this summer
