Mahsuda Snaith

I’m a British-Bangladeshi writer who was brought up on a Midlands council estate and discovered I had dyslexia in my early 20’s. On paper, it seems impossible that someone like me would become a published writer but I had a love of reading and writing that drove me forward. I have now published two novels as well as having my stories included in a number of anthologies, including the A Fresh Start collection by Quick Reads

Tell us about a time reading had a positive impact on you.

I fell in love with stories as a child listening to fairy tales at school. I loved the magical escapism but also the slightly gruesome element in some of them (even more gruesome in the original versions). It wasn’t long after that I began to make up my own stories.

What do you love about reading?

One of the reasons I didn’t discover I was dyslexic until my early 20’s was because I always loved reading and escaping into a story, I was just slower than others at it. The reason I loved reading from an early age was because of the way that reading can transport you to another perspective, another city or country, how you can live another life with a whole host of characters you didn’t know before without leaving the comfort of your room.

I hope that I can help spread the joy of getting your head stuck in a story – and the pleasure and knowledge that can come from that – to as many people as possible.

Can you recommend a read to our Reading Ahead participants?

I really enjoy the Quick Reads series, especially the ones that are abridgements of books I don’t feel I’ll ever get the time to read the full versions of. One that I’ve particularly enjoyed recently is Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers.