Every year, the Discoveries programme appoints a scholar – one promising writer who is awarded a free scholarship to attend a three-month ‘Writing Your Novel’ course with Curtis Brown Creative. In 2024, the scholar was Zeynep Kazmaz. Read on to learn more about Zeynep’s writing journey and her experience of the programme – now open for entries until January 12 2026.

When it was announced that I had been named the 2024 Discoveries Scholar, the response I received most often from friends was, ‘I had no idea you wrote!’. It wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t something I shared either. Could I really identify as a writer if I didn’t have anything to show for it?

That wasn’t always the case. Growing up, I announced to anyone who would listen that I was going to be a writer. Adults didn’t like that. They offered me convoluted opinions that ultimately led to the same conclusion: pursuing one’s passion was a waste of time. And though my parents were always supportive of my ambitions, it got increasingly difficult to tune out what felt like the entirety of the rest of the world.

Around the same time, for reasons too complicated to cover within the word count of this piece, it became clear to me that I needed to leave my home country and create a life for myself elsewhere. Some goals become so all-encompassing that, to allow them room to materialise, you need to shrink everything else in their periphery. So I found myself listening to the adults. I put writing aside, and I focused on my studies and my job.

For the next decade and a half, my main concerns were the practicalities of achieving and maintaining a life in another country – even when the countries I chose expressed a desire to get rid of people like me. But every now and then, a line of dialogue would appear in my head, then a scene, then a worst-case scenario and a character who tried desperately to avoid it. At nights when my housemates weren’t home, I found myself writing feverishly. It felt easier that way, like it wasn’t real if no one saw me doing it.

One day, I thought, when I finally felt settled or could save money instead of spending it on visa applications and lawyers, I would pursue writing again. I would take a course, just like I once hoped I would. For the time being, however, that was too much of a luxury.

When I first heard about Discoveries, I didn’t even consider entering. Then, I found myself typing the words into my search bar to prove that I wouldn’t even be eligible. I was. Then, I opened the form, just to convince myself that it would cost too much money or take too much time. Well, it was free. And I already had the required 10,000 words. Should I? In the last week of entries, I did. Then I quickly closed the tab on my laptop and in my brain.

When I received the longlist email, at first I thought it was spam. Then I spent a month convinced that there had been some sort of mistake and that I would be contacted with an apology. Was my writing really good enough? Were immigrants even eligible for this award? Only when the announcement was public did I find myself admitting that I wanted more. I wanted to be the Scholar and win the writing course. It was the Curtis Brown flagship course that I had been eyeing for years but couldn’t afford. Even if I could have afforded it, I don’t know if I would have taken the plunge – writing would have stopped being secret if I did.

London has never not felt like home. But, in a way, getting recognition from Discoveries is what convinced me that working so hard to stay here had been the right decision. I didn’t need to wait, be more settled, or have more money to do what I loved. I could start now.

The course was everything I hoped it would be. Held in the agency’s iconic London office, it gave me the opportunity to workshop my writing in person for the first time, with a wonderful group of writers I continue to meet with every month. With their and our tutor’s help, I finished writing a novel that deals with themes like (surprise surprise) migration and belonging. Writing is no longer an impossible goal I work towards in secret, but something I can confidently say I do. Every time someone asks how my writing is going, I remember that none of this would have been possible without Discoveries and the Women’s Prize Trust.