THIS WEEK
The Black Issue 2023 Feature: gal-dem
Specialised and youth-led outlets such as gal-dem [are] a vital entry point for aspiring non-fiction writers
gal interrupted: what does the loss of gal-dem mean for the book publishing industry?
A pipeline for young, Black talent, online magazine gal-dem recently announced it would close owing to economic concerns. How will the move affect its writers—and the talent pool book publishers often draw on?
Text Kimberly McIntosh 28 26th May 2023
W
hen I took the phone call, I was pacing up and down Granary Square in London’s King’s Cross. It was 2015. That conversation—with Liv Litle, who had just set up a nascent online magazine called gal- dem—would chart the course of my career, moving it in a new direction of travel like the dams and locks guiding the canal that ran placidly beside me. Last month, the gal-dem team announced that, aſter eight years, the award-winning outlet dedicated to sharing the perspectives of women and non-binary people of colour was closing, leading to an outpouring of support, appreciation, devastation and grief on social media, in newspaper columns and even in Parliament. In a state- ment on the gal-dem website, the team said the financial instabilit caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and economic downturn had led to its closure. I’m prone to narrativisation, as most life writers are.
But it’s not an overstatement to say gal-dem is the primary reason I have a début essay collection, black girl, no magic, coming out with HarperCollins in a month’s time. gal-dem gave me my first ever byline. It gave me a dating column. And I’m not the only one. “At least three or four writers I worked with who were very, very fresh, or who had never writen before they
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