Stories of Blackness — Chapter 4: Literary Festivals
“I seem to have gone back to being the sole face of colour at literary or publishing events”
That quote is from the former UK Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman. Despite being the first black Children’s Laureate, her prominence was not matched by a proliferation of other visible black writers at literary events. Her complaint is supported by the statements of prominent British authors Courrtia Newland and Sunny Singh who revealed that they were “rarely invited to literary festivals”.
Literary festivals are, in the context of a relatively conservative industry, lavish affairs. They enable writers and others on the production side of the industry, to liaise with their fellow industry professionals, readers and other people with a passion for or interest in literature. In my previous articles, I gave accounts of how black readers, writers, publishers are, in different ways, marginalised in their respective arenas of the publishing industry. In light of those revelations, it is no surprise that none of these groups form large numbers at literary festivals and similar events. The Spread the Word report revealed that of the 2,000 writers appearing at the major literary festivals in the UK only 100, 4%, were identified as Black Caribbean, Black African, south Asian or east Asian, and UK-based. If you have read my previous articles, these numbers will certainly not surprise you. However, thankfully, there is bright light on the horizon.
Next week sees the launch of Bare Lit, the first literary festival dedicated to writers of colour. Just like the Jeli, Bare Lit aims to “empower … these voices that are so often silenced in the literary mainstream”. Bare Lit was created by Media Diversified, an organisation that promotes writers of colour. In a recent Guardian interview, the founder of Media Diversified, Samantha Asumadu, expressed her ambition for the event:
“Bare Lit will give a destination to hopefully hundreds of people who haven’t felt compelled to go to a literary festival before or felt uninspired when they did because either they didn’t see any, or very few, writers of colour they read or they could discover.”
I am proud to be hosting a panel during the Festival, entitled ‘What lies ahead for publishing”. I will be joined by Crystal from Own It London, Valerie from Jacaranda Books and Sherif from Darf Books, and we will be discussing our visions for the future of publishing.
A literary festival is a celebration of literature, and with the Jeli also launching next week, I am very much looking forward to launching my publishing company in that spirit of celebration. The Bare Lit took idea, and with a lot of hard work, they have created something that was desperately needed. The industry we find ourselves in is certainly not perfect, but the five writers who will form part of the Jeli Launch Collection, the hundreds of people who will be at Bare Lit next week and the thousands of people who have already started engaging with the Jeli on Instagram, assure me that we have (and will continue to have) a lot to celebrate.
This is the fourth of five articles. The fifth article will be published tomorrow. Until then, you can sign up at thejeli.com or check us out on Instagram.
