Saadia Ahmed

“I am more uninhibited when writing for an Australian audience. There is no facade or image that I need to uphold.”

Storybound explores what it means to write – from the heart and soul – and where that writing takes us. Every writer’s journey is different, so we invite you to take a moment to read, pause and reflect on what it means to shape stories for the page.

Saadia Ahmed is a Pakistani Australian architect-turned-writer-turned-journalist-turned-academic. (And ‘mad-chef’ should fit in there somewhere). Her work is regularly published in leading publications in Pakistan with special emphasis on human rights in general and women rights in particular as well as being a featured storyteller at Centre for Stories.

Centre for Stories: What is your favourite way to consume stories? What are you currently watching/listening/reading?

Saadia Ahmed: Now this would be a tough pick. I have always been obsessed with conversations. I find people telling their lived experiences the most superior form of storytelling. Thanks to digital media, we have storytelling in ways that were unimaginable a decade ago. I love listening to people, breaking into conversations with the children and old people I might never see again, podcasts… and, can I mention my obsession with TikTok?

CFS: How do you feel you have contributed to building or maintaining creative spaces?

SA: I am keen on making no tall claims. Whatever little I have done was, is, and always will be for the love of storytelling.

CFS: If you could work on a collaborative project with someone, who would it be?

SA: I would love to work with Sisonke Msimang on creating stories that bring alternate voices to the mainstream Australian landscape. Okay, let me be honest. Any creative project with Sisonke would be a dream collaboration anyway. Yes, I am a fangirl!

CFS: What are your goals for the year 2024?

SA: To live, love, and laugh from the core and crust of my heart!

CFS: What is the best advice you could give or that you have received?

SA: I have been incredibly fortunate to be in the company of some of the kindest and purest souls. Hence, picking one advice would be a lion’s task. I also find it hard to advise others as everyone’s journey is different. My dad once told me, ‘Never give yourself away in charity.’

CFS: Did you find it a difficult transition from writing for a Pakistani audience to writing for an Australian audience?

SA: Not at all! Rather, I feel I am more uninhibited when writing for an Australian audience. There is no facade or image that I need to uphold. As a creative, this is the biggest bliss when you can shed off any former skin and can come as you are in front of the audience. It has been cathartic and in some ways therapeutic.

CFS: You’ve talked about how you changed into creative writing after graduating from school. Was it scary to change profession so late? What made you decide to change?

SA: Sounds cliched but I did not choose creative writing; creative writing chose me. It happened so organically that fear never crossed paths with me. I was never keen on practicing Architecture. I am sure my disdain for burning the midnight oil drafting longitudinal cross-sections of the hypothetical buildings compelled me to discover happier paths in life.

Writing Change, Writing Inclusion is Centre for Stories’ signature writing program for 2021 to 2024. Generously funded by The Ian Potter Foundation, Australia Council for the Arts, My Place, and Centre for Stories Founders Circle, this writing program features mentoring, hot desk, and publication opportunities for emerging writers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and/or Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander backgrounds.

These stories have been licensed to the Centre for Stories by the Storyteller. For reproduction and distribution of these stories, please contact the Centre for Stories.

This interview was published in 2024.

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“Whatever little I have done was, is, and always will be for the love of storytelling. “