Bare Lit to publish anthology

Bare Lit, a UK literature festival devoted to BAME writers, is bringing out an anthology to allow "writers of colour to shine on their own terms".

The Bare Lit '16 Anthology will be published by independent publisher Brain Mill Press, featuring work by a selection of Bare Lit 2016 participants, as well as poets, fiction authors and graphic novelists. Helping the Bare Lit team to curate the anthology are authors Kavita Bhanot, editor of the short story collection Too Asian, Not Asian Enough (Tindal Street), which challenges and deconstructs stereotypes around British Asian writing, and award-winning writer Courttia Newland, author of seven works of fiction and co-editor for IC3: the Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain (Penguin).

The initiative was organised by global media and advocacy platform Media Diversified to celebrate the work and achievements of BAME literary voices in the UK, and "to stand against their silencing by the literary mainstream".

Last year’s World Book Night UK came under fire for failing to feature non-white authors on its 2016 reading list, which author Nikesh Shukla called "a sadly wasted opportunity to be truly diverse".

Editor Bhanot said: “This anthology is about creating a space for writers of colour to shine on their own terms."

Previous Media Diversified publishing ventures include the e-book Complicit No More, a compilation of essays on feminism by BAME women writers, the upcoming e-book Fantasy’s Othering Fetish, which collects the platform’s series of articles on racism in the fantasy genre, and From the Lines of Dissent, to be published by Out-Spoken Press in November 2016.

The Bare Lit '16 Anthology publishes in February next year to coincide with Bare Lit 2017.