
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.
Bu hikaye The Scots Magazine dergisinin June 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye The Scots Magazine dergisinin June 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap

A Rescuer's Tale
Glencoe Mountain Rescue veteran Davy Gunn’s book tells tales of drama, tragedy, resilience and ultimately triumph

An Independent Sout
Brooke Combe has found fulfilment away from the big labels

Turning Fear Into Fiction
Rachelle Atalla explores worryingly possible apocalyptic themes in her books and screenplays

An Islander's Values
The first Scot to become Premier of New Zealand, Robert Stout, was passionate about education and fairness in land ownership

A Wee Blether With ...Matthew Bellhouse Moran
The charity chief is full of plans for HMS Unicorn in Dundee

A Nation Of Shopkeepers No More?
As retail trends shift, breathing new life into Scotland's ailing town centres could require a fresh approach and some creative thinking

Walking The Dream
The couple behind the Walkhighlands website are living their best life and building an international community of hillwalking fans

Electric Dreams
Saddling up for an e-bike adventure, the quest was to see the best of Kintyre in 24 hours

The Lore Of Peat
Dispelling the myths around smoke, casks, peatiness and improbably high parts per million

A Whole Otter Love
A struggling pup formed an unlikely bond with a Shetlander which ended up helping them both and resulted in a hit documentary