NYLA AHMAD SCOTTISH BOOK TRUST A
t just 28, Nyla Ahmad is a 10-year veteran of the Scottish literary sector, having started at legendary comics shop Plan B while at Glasgow University. She then worked with the Glasgow’s Women’s Library and BHP Comics on various projects—with the latter a
campaign called Full Colour, which supported BAME comics creators and culminated in an anthology which she edited. She moved to Scottish Book Trust to help co-ordinate the annual nationwide literary lollapalooza, Scottish Book Week. Within 10 months she was promoted to reading communities manager, taking on more responsibility, including masterminding Pitch It, a programme that lets organisations bid for authors to come to their communities. Graphic novels remain a passion—she is on the board of Glasgow Zine Library and a steering committee for the Society of Authors’ Comics Creators Network. Ahmad says: “I love being able to approach book programming from a unique angle that aims to engage people in exciting or collaborative ways.”
MICAELA ALCAINO FREELANCE
A
lmost a decade ago Micaela Alcaino relocated to London from Sydney, “and literally applied to every
graphic design job I could find”. Her first interview was at Transworld, “and I’m so happy they took a chance on me”, she says—”it was the best job I could have fallen into”. After spells in-house at a few lists, Alcaino struck out solo, and is regarded as a sure-fire bet to conjure something striking: her cover for Bridget Collins’ The Binding won the Books Are My Bag Beautiful Book Award a few years back, and the designer claimed her first Academy of British Cover Design shortlisting last year with Brian O’Connell’s The Personals. A skilled typesetter with a style perfect for intricate historical and sci-fi titles, as well as literary titles with a classical bent, she cites her highlights of the past year as jack- ets for Ariadne by Jennifer Saint (Wildfire), Careless by Kirsty Capes (Orion) and Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko (Hot Key). As well as being ”excited for some normality, [she’s] definitely excited for Elektra, Jennifer Saint’s next book, and Susan Stokes- Chapman’s Pandora (Harvill Secker)”.
EISHAR BRAR KNIGHTS OF E
ishar Brar entered publishing as a Creative Access intern shortly after graduating, starting in the rights department at PRH Children’s. Though she “learnt a lot there”, she knew she wanted to go into editorial, so she moved sideways to Scholastic. This was “really form-
ative in terms of learning from other editors”, but she became “frustrated, espe- cially when it came to conversations around inclusivity and diversity”. At that point, she was approached by expanding indie Knights Of, which she joined as editorial director in 2019. She says: “The ethos of Knights Of, to build a chil- dren’s publisher that is truly representative, felt like a goal I had been striving towards for years.” Since then, highlights have included publishing Elle McNicoll’s award-winning début A Kind of Spark and Burhana Islam’s Mayhem Mission. There is plenty more to come, such as Happy Here, an anthology of Black British middle-grade authors, and Candice Carty-Williams’ first YA novel, and Brar aims to build “an iconic canon of children’s literature”.
07
AMY BAXTER LITTLE, BROWN/BAD FORM
S
ome “right place, right time” luck brought Amy Baxter to publishing. At university, she wanted to
get into the books world but was knocked back from everything she applied for, resigning herself to becoming an accountant. But she happened to go to a talk by Hamish Hamilton’s Simon Prosser, who mentioned the Penguin graduate diversity scheme, which had a dead- line that very night; she applied and was accepted. At Penguin Michael Joseph she worked on some of the division’s biggest recent hits, includ- ing Captain Sir Tom Moore’s memoir, before being lured over to Little, Brown in an assistant editor role this year. Yet her publishing journey started before Penguin: in the three- month interim between graduation and starting at PMJ she founded Bad Form, a literary magazine and website for Black, Asian and marginalised community writers. Baxter has grown Bad Form from a one-woman band on a shoestring budget to a team of five, publishing six issues a year—the latest serialised in Vogue, along with its Young Writer and Short Story prizes.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
