the long and winding road
interview with writer & editor taslim jaffer on building a writing career
love letters to storytellers is a monthly newsletter about reminding each other about the power of story through honest reflections on the writer life and interviews with indie and local authors.
The book is out, and the writing life continues! In this newsletter:
My interview series love letters to storytellers is back with an interview with writer and editor Taslim Jaffer. In this interview she talks about the non-linear development of her writing career, her love of creative non-fiction and more.
A few updates on what I’ve been working on, including some upcoming publications! Read to the bottom for those. :)
featured storyteller: Taslim Jaffer
How did you get into writing, and how did you go about building your freelance writing career, with journalism, editing, teaching, and more?
I'm sure you hear this a lot, but it's been a long and winding road. I first started writing short stories in elementary school, to entertain my friends. They were mostly based on movies I watched or books I had read. I'd grab a character from some place or an idea from another and take off from there. I started journaling the summer I turned 10. Through high school, I went through that phase many of us can relate to; the teenage-angst-poetry phrase. I still have those poems and yes, they make me cringe - hard!
But when a couple of teachers suggested I pursue writing as a career, I did not take it seriously. Nobody I knew was a writer. I didn't see that modelled in my family. Following some other interests, I worked with autistic children and then became a speech-language pathologist. After 12 years in the field, and two of my own kids later, for a few reasons, I closed up shop. And that's when I turned my attention to writing.
I saw a magazine for South Asian women was looking for volunteer writers and submitted ideas that were accepted; once I started publishing, I was hooked and wanted to see how far I could take this. I started building my portfolio by writing for parenting sites and entering writing contests. I got involved in a literary organization as a grant writer and then event host. And eventually was asked to teach some workshops. Nothing happened linearly. I tried out different types of writing: ghostwriting for medical newsletters, social media content for small businesses and non-profits, writing for my own personal development blog and creating journals, journalism and short memoir. I'd stop and start depending on my stage in motherhood. I'd say the last few years have been the most consistent in terms of what I'm writing and in 2022 I graduated with my MFA in Creative Nonfiction from University of King's College. I feel like I've "come home" in my writing. I have a couple other itches to scratch in this industry but they all are in the CNF arena.
Nothing happened linearly. I tried out different types of writing: ghostwriting for medical newsletters, social media content for small businesses and non-profits, writing for my own personal development blog and creating journals, journalism and short memoir. I'd stop and start depending on my stage in motherhood.
Editing and teaching feel like a natural extension to my writing. They keep me constantly learning and engaging with other writers, growing in my art and paying forward what I have learned from my own mentors and my time spent in the craft. A lot of those gigs I got just by putting myself out there, pitching ideas and courses to local arts associations, and making connections with other writers.
You write about culture, identity, and home. What draws you to these themes?
I think I've always been drawn to these themes - and I mean well before I started writing for the public - because they have been topics I have grappled with since childhood. Instead of thinking of these ideas in terms of "culture, identity and home," as a child and adolescent, they were questions and thoughts like:
Why is my family different from my school friends' families?
I'm embarrassed to say we're from Africa because of what other people think of when I say that.
I wish my grandma would speak English in front of my friends.
I wish I was allowed to have a boyfriend.
We're different from other people from India.
Why can my brother do whatever he wants and I can't?
I feel like I have two different lives: one at home, one at school. And I'm constantly interpreting these two parts of me to other people.
Now, as a middle-aged woman and a mom of three kids who are navigating their own ideas of culture, identity and home/belonging, I have the desire and the perspective to explore these concepts in my writing and other platforms like curating and moderating panels at literary festivals and teaching workshops.
What have been the biggest challenges in your writing career and how do you keep going?
Initially my biggest challenge was not really knowing who I was a writer and what I really wanted to put out into the world. On a day-to-day level, my other challenges were being the one at home the majority of the day and a large chunk of the evening with small children, and the fatigue that comes with keeping up with, well, everything, while being sleep-deprived. I still managed to write - in my journal, on my blog, the occasional article. But time and space and a finite energy reserve were a constant battle.
I eventually hired a high school babysitter to come over twice a week for a couple hours each time, to play with the kids at home while I locked myself up in my studio and wrote. It felt amazing! I also figured out that if I wrapped my infant daughter on my chest and swayed back and forth, she'd fall asleep and I could write while standing at the kitchen island. Little tricks that I think many moms use! I did what I could with what I had at the time. Once they got to be more self-sufficient and could play with each other or if they were in the mood to "copy" Mommy and write/draw/colour too, I took advantage of the pockets of time.
You are on the board of the Creative Nonfiction Collective Society, and you write a lot of creative non-fiction. What appeals to you about creative non-fiction?
Creative non-fiction feels like the best of both worlds to me. I get to explore universal themes and science and history, and whatever else inspires me, and weave them into personal stories. Things I have lived through and want to examine. Questions that I want to answer or even just attempt to. And then I get to borrow elements from fiction and poetry to present all of this digging and unearthing in an appealing way. There is so much to learn in this genre, so many forms to play with, I can't get bored.
Taslim Jaffer is a writer, editor and writing instructor currently working on an essay collection called Are We There Yet? about her family’s evolution in culture, identity, and home. Her work has appeared in various online and print publications such as Maclean's, CBC, WestCoast Families, Peace Arch News and more. She is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology Back Where I Came From (Book*hug Press, 2024).
Taslim has been teaching creative and expressive writing in community and rehabilitative settings since 2015 and currently hosts workshops on Zoom and in-person. More information about her editing services and workshops can be found on her website at taslimjaffer.com.
updates
A piece of mine was published in The Temz Review yesterday! You can read it here. It is called the life & death of being good and is about some of the ways in which growing up in evangelical purity culture affected me. Here’s the behind the scenes of the publication of that piece:
November 2021 - wrote a paragraph during a free writing time at a workshop, read it aloud, the workshop leader said “There’s something there” and I decided to run with it.
Winter 2021 - Wrote the piece, edited, sent to my lovely writer friends for feedback, revised.
Spring 2022 - Submitted to the Creative Non-fiction Collective/Humber Literary Review Creative Non-fiction Contest.
Spring 2022 - I’m longlisted! Then shortlisted! The piece didn’t win (Taslim’s piece did!) but I felt honoured and got some written feedback from the judge, Omar Mouallem.
Summer 2022 - Submitted a few more times, hear nothing, get a few non-form (meaning actual personalized feedback instead of copy-and-paste) rejections.
Spring 2023 - Took a break for my book launch, decided I don’t like the piece anymore as is, revised and got feedback again, changed the title, reworked.
Summer 2023 - Submitted again to a few literary magazines.
August 2023 - Within a few weeks, got an acceptance from The Temz Review! Phew.
I have been working on a novel (I posted a reel about the featured character’s from that novel here), as well as a grant application to hopefully support the writing of that.
I also got a blog post pitch accepted by The Nourishing Word blog which will be out in… January!
I am interviewing my illustrator Amber for HNDL (Highlighted Neurodivergent and Disabled Life) magazine’s second issue, which will be out this fall. (It is so cute, you should definitely check out their first issue here.)
As far as this is a love story goes… well…
The life of an indie author! This is pretty typical, and also why reviews are like gold for indie authors! If you’ve read this is a love story I would love if you reviewed it on any retail site you get books, with either a star or a sentence, whatever is easiest, and whatever is true to you (yes, even a one-star review if that’s how you felt). If you send me a screenshot or link to your review, I’ll even send you a homemade limited-edition sticker based off the book cover! (*doesn’t apply to people who have already left reviews, but thank you!)
Happy September,
Alyssa