New writer 2024: Taslin Pollock

Taslin Pollock is a British-born South Asian writer of Contemporary Middle Grade fiction. Her stories celebrate her culture and her heritage with heart and a sprinkle of humour. Her first ever piece of Children’s writing was as a competition entry to the Falkirk Writing Rammy after seeing the poster on the library window. Afterwards, she was awarded a place on the Writing for Children Lab with Scottish Book Trust and the BPOC Writers Network, and she’s never looked back.

She is an alumna of the 2023 All Stories Mentorship Programme and the 2022 HarperCollins Author and Design Academy – programmes supporting aspiring writers from underrepresented backgrounds. Her writing has been shortlisted for the Searchlight Best Novel Opening Award and the Golden Egg Award. Her short story, ‘The Reluctant Adventurer’ was published in Scotland’s Stories: Adventure for Book Week Scotland in 2023. Taslin currently resides in Central Scotland with her family. When she is not writing, she can usually be found looking for adventure in the pages of a book or outside looking for a real-life adventure.

Writing sample

When Home is Not a Place

I know that if I ask my big brother Aadil what a ‘home’ is, he’ll say it’s a place where somebody lives. But it’s so much more than that. I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly, but I know that the red brick building I’m staring at, isn’t it. It’s not just because the ground floor has a shop where the living room should be. Or that someone has stuck a blue sign which reads ‘Bellfield Newsagents’ across the front. Or that the front door doesn’t need a key to open it during the day or that a bell rings every time someone walks through it, which at the moment it’s doing a lot.

My Bapa and Aadil are carrying our stuff in from the rented removal van. Well, not everything, obviously. My arms tighten around my Asteroid Aliyah comics. I couldn’t very well have put them in the van, could I? Not with Bapa driving. Imagine if he got lost getting to the middle of nowhere and ended up taking the wrong turn, driving the removal van down a jetty into a Loch where the van was devoured by a monster that has just woken from a very long sleep and realised it was very hungry. That would have been a disaster. The comics would have been ruined. The first issue is in mint condition too - irreplaceable. Unlike houses.

Taslin says:

'It is an absolute honour to be a recipient of the New Writers Award and I am extremely grateful to the Scottish Book Trust for this fantastic opportunity. I am keen to continue learning and developing my writing craft in the hope of one day sharing my stories with young readers.'