publisher but they were looking for me to write a short essay and then get other people to contribute to the book. Hodder was the only one that believed I could write the book.
What was the reaction to your Independent articles?
YB People were like: “Oh you’re actually a decent writer.” I just enjoyed it so much,
and I felt like my writing was making a posi- tive impact. Since the articles came out, I’ve had people come up to me on the street like: ‘I read that article and I’m doing this now, I’m changing this, I’ve had this.’ It’s one of those powerful moments where you sit down in your room and you write a piece because you have an experience, and then don’t realise that you’re also changing people’s perspectives on things. I think that’s what is really powerful and I hope that is what the book does as well.
How long did it take to write the first draft?
YB Oh my God, so much longer than I thought it would. I thought I had loads of time when I initially signed my contract, but when you start writing, you’re like: “Shit, I actually have other things to do. I actually do have a life.”
KK I just love that you came into the office to write so much [laughs]. You were puting
in long days!
YB Oh my god, PTSD [laughs]. I would come in at about nine, and I wouldn’t leave until eight, like when the cleaners would come in. I even became friends with some of them. I loved being in the office because I felt like I really got a lot of inspiration; just seeing so many different books and being around like- minded people. It was a quiet space and I was able to talk to other editors and explore the building. I enjoyed coming into the office. Even though it was very sad.
KK I hadn’t seen an author do that before. I remember one day seeing Yewande in
the kitchen, and I was like: “Oh my God, that’s Yewande!”
Is this the Carmelite House office? KK YB Yeah!
YB Look at me saying “yeah” like I work there. I actually did get a key card though
[laughs]. I felt like I was part of the team.
Expanding on her recent pieces in the Independent on racial renaming and colourism, Yewande Biala’s Reclaiming will be published in hardback by Hodder imprint Coronet on 14th July (£16.99, 9781529389517), with the title also available in audiobook and e-book format.
TheBookseller.com
Comment
Mandem don’t read: how my early love of reading led to a career in publishing
Jason Morgan Co-owner & creative director, OWN IT!
I
really got my love of books from my mother. She would write short stories and then read them to me and my sister
when we were really young. It always amazed me how these words written on a piece of paper could just transform and become magical within my imagination. My dad also loved to read, and so our flat growing up was really like a mini library, which was fitting, as libraries were one of my favourite places in the world— of course, this was before the government started closing them. Some years ago, I happened to find an old
picture book I had as a six-year-old and was amazed to see that I had coloured in some of the characters Black, to represent me and my friends. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a political statement on my part as a six-year-old, but I guess I just had the need to see myself and to see us. When I was around 10, I was walking home from school carrying The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien and some older boys approached me and asked me why I was reading such a big book (to be fair, the book was big). I don’t remember what my answer was, but I do remember that one of the boys took the book from me and threw it on top of a garage. Even as a 10-year-old, I got the message—reading was something that I would have to keep as a secret pastime. As I got older, that’s exactly what I did, after all, mandem don’t read… do they? In my late teens and early twenties, I was definitely more comfortable in my skin and was
actively promoting the books that I was read- ing to my friends. My secret pastime was out and, in talking to my friends about books, I was amazed at how many of them told me the same things… they had always been fascinated by books but never felt like books were for them. It was something seen as not cool, nerdy or, heaven forbid, girly! Most of my friends lapped up the books I curated and lent them (I say lent but I never got most of them back). Twenty-something years later, I find myself
in publishing. In many ways, things haven’t changed; I’m still trying to turn people on to books that represent the voices of often the most underrepresented. As I have aged, I realise that’s it’s not just about race; class plays such an important role too. Crystal Mahey-Morgan and I set up OWN IT! to publish those lost voices, and now, as we have expanded into a literary agency as well, to also represent them. In 2016, we published the only début novel
by a Black British male author released in the UK that year [Robyn Travis’ Mama Can’t Raise No Man]. Are we, as an industry, in a better place? In some ways, yes, but let’s not kid ourselves that we don’t have a hell of a way to go. I am a publisher and an agent, I have grown up loving books, but even I still don’t always feel comfortable in bookshops, and I know a lot of Black authors who feel exactly the same way. In many ways, that feeling within bookshops is representative of the industry as a whole. I am a realist and, fortunately, an optimist. If I wasn’t I certainly wouldn’t be in this industry, but here I am, maybe naïvely, still thinking we can change the world one book at a time.
CRYSTAL MAHEY-MORGAN
JASON MORGAN AND
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