BY J.M LEE
When Taslim returned to school for a Master of Fine Arts degree, she was 42 years old, 15 years after leaving university. Those 15 years between degrees paved the path to where she is today as a writer, editor, and writing instructor. This was a time of growth for her in many ways: she had to let go of what a professional, working woman looks like and learn how to nourish this emerging self while raising three little people.
“Toward the end of high school, I wrote a lot in my journal about my future as a successful woman,” she muses with a smile. “These scenarios included high heels, power suits, a blue BMW parked in my reserved stall in the garage of an upscale downtown building, a job where I moved quickly, made important decisions, and then, at the end of a highly productive day, retired to my condo overlooking English Bay. I gleaned these professional women’s ideas from TV and magazines that depicted successful women as glitzy, intimidating, and busy.”
However, her vision became clearer after completing her undergraduate degree in psychology. During her studies, she worked as a behavioral interventionist with autistic children and found satisfaction in helping them communicate. “When I shadowed the speech-language pathologists these children worked with, I saw the work’s challenges and payoffs—it wasn’t glamorous (no high heels and power suits!) but enticing. After I became a certified speech-language pathologist, I worked in a school district and private practice for a couple of years before my husband and I welcomed our first daughter.”
As joyous as that was, it was also a time of heightened anxiety due to her mom being terminally ill. During her maternity leave, she continued her journaling practice and wrote down story ideas that came to her mind. Writing provided her with a reprieve from caring for her baby and worrying about her mom’s declining health. “My daughter and I had 20 precious months together with my mom before she passed and left a gulf in our lives. I had a new identity: me without her. The only way I knew what that meant was to keep writing.”
A month after her mother died, Taslim attended a drop-in writing group for the first time, hosted by Pandora’s Collective in Vancouver, about 45 minutes from where she lived. That night, she discovered she needed a writing community. “Over the next ten years, I volunteered with Pandora’s Collective as a grant writer,” she reminisces. “I helped with their annual literary arts festival. With the encouragement of my writer friends, I read my work at events, hosted poetry nights, and eventually co-taught writing workshops with them. During those ten years, I had two more children, and amidst it all, I hung up my license as a speech-language pathologist.”
Taslim knew there was another better-suited path for her, but it took courage to admit it. She had three children aged six and under and wanted the flexibility to be with them as much as possible. She also wanted to pursue writing more formally after enjoying lifestyle magazine publications. “My idea of success had morphed from powerhouse to staying in the house. Still, it took time for me to come to terms with that, to be okay with being just a mom with what looked more like a glorified hobby than a big, meaningful career. I took memoir classes around my kids’ schedules and published my essays in anthologies. I kept a blog on creativity and produced workbooks sold in gift shops around the Lower Mainland. My kids were a part of all this—sitting at my feet or wrapped in a carrier as I typed, coming to stores to pitch my workbooks, sleeping in the audience at events I read at, and attending festivals I helped produce. They and my husband cheered loudly when I said I was returning to school to learn more about the writing craft and the publishing business in mid-life.”
Today, Taslim is an award-winning writer and editor of the anthology *Back Where I Came From: On Culture, Identity, and Home* (Book*hug Press, 2024). She has received grants and residencies to support her writing as she works on her upcoming projects. “I have found the most strength in saying no to things that keep me too busy to write or care for my needs.”
She prioritizes her creative process by focusing on writing and personal growth, keeping her productive and fulfilled in her work.
