Forwards together

As all creatives know, continued attempts at success are inevitably harder to achieve. Re-creating a masterpiece can be like capturing lightning in a bottle – near impossible. All we need to do is look at the spate of bad movie sequels to understand this (I’m looking at you, “Independence Day: Resurgence”). So it’s with pride that I can say the Black Writers’ Guild has continued to strike gold, going from strength to strength.

In 2020, more than 200 Black writers in the UK came together with one voice and common goals: to demand the leading publishers address the alarming systemic inequality and gross underrepresentation of Black authors, and to work towards building an equal, sustainable and profitable ecosystem for Black literary talent in British publishing.

One of the key milestones we have been able to achieve as a guild is presenting key publishers with a gold standard against which to measure diversity within the industry. Initial feedback has been encouraging and we are currently securing an agreement with the Publishers Association to roll this out to all its applicable members. Once implemented, I believe this will give the industry clear visibility into diverse representation – enabling publishers to properly and accurately account for the Black talent it currently has, which will also enable them to make measurable commitments to improve where they are found wanting.

Chief successes

When we established ourselves as a guild, we matched key members of our organisation with chief executive officers of key publishers in the UK in order to address the objectives set out in our founding letter. We are grateful to Bloomsbury, Faber & Faber, Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster for their support, and we are looking forward to an ongoing, productive collaboration. We are also excited to expand our partnerships to other publishers.

While the goals of the Black Writers’ Guild are not insignificant, I believe they are achievable and matched only by our commitment to meet them. We know that to keep building for the future, we need resources. As such, we have made fundraising a key priority – be that through grant applications or our partnerships with the publishing industry. To date, several publishers, including Bloomsbury, Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, have collectively pledged £100,000 on a rolling annual basis towards the efforts of the Black Writers’ Guild, with more fundraising efforts to come.

Our responsibility, first and foremost, is to Black British writers. We made a solemn pledge that no matter one’s background, experience or genre of writing, the Black Writers’ Guild will represent and fight for them.

To support Black writers through what might be a difficult time, we are proud to announce that our hardship fund will be launching shortly and we will share details of it on our website.

Passing 500

From humble beginnings, we have grown to a 500-strong guild, and we were proud to host some of our members at our inaugural Black Writers’ Guild Conference. I’m excited to share that our Black Writers’ Summer Conference and Soirée is scheduled for 10th June, and we are looking forward to welcoming our members, partners and supporters.

The Black community has long shown the world what we can achieve together and the Black Writers’ Guild is an example of how we are driving impact in the publishing industry and beyond. One of my favourite African proverbs says: “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” I continue to believe in our collective responsibility and power to make the publishing industry more equitable to and representative of Black writers.

And the best bit? We’re just getting started.