Books Council Wales funds first two full-time magazine and book editors of colour

Books Council Wales (VCW)has pledged £40,000 to fund two full-time editors of colour at independent publisher Lucent Dreaming. It is claimed this will be the first funded book and magazine publisher to have two full time editors of colour in Wales. Jessica Dunrod’s Lily Translates (children’s books, audiobook and translation) and Dunrod Publishing, not funded by BCW, is believed to be Wales’ first Black-owned publisher.

The soon to be editor-in-chief and Lucent Dreaming co-founder Jannat Ahmed, former marketing and subscriptions officer at Poetry Wales, begins her full-time paid role at the press later this month.

She will be joined by Samiha Meah as fiction editor this summer once she graduates from Cardiff University. The press was founded in 2017 by Cardiff University alumni Ahmed, Jess Beynon and Joachim Buur, with Jonas David. 

The money will come from Book Council Wales’ New Audiences Fund. 

“As far as I know, yesterday, there were no full-time editors or publishers of colour employed in English-language literary book publishing in Wales," said Ahmed. "Today, there is. There is space in publishing for us, for publishers of fiction and poetry who focus on partnerships and collaboration. I hope, with our friends at Lumin – a small press, radio and curatorial collective, and another person of colour-led recipient of the grant – we can create a publishing landscape with a working culture better suited to a more diverse literary community, and redress the long-standing barriers that people of colour and other marginalised people disproportionately face in the arts. Lucent Dreaming as it currently exists is reflective of the minimum energy I’ve been able to give the magazine for almost three years due to a lack of finances. To be given the chance to work in a new way, full-time four days a week, will be transformative, for me, and for publishing in Wales.”

The Cardiff-based company launched the first edition of its volunteer-run creative writing magazine for new and emerging authors in April 2018, and has since published 10 issues. Its first book – an anthology showcasing new writers from Literature Wales’ Representing Wales scheme – will be published in June 2022. 

The publisher hopes to platform new and emerging writers, and foster new editors and publishing professionals from underrepresented backgrounds. 

It has previously worked with Cardiff-based theatre and arts group Fio on the Arts Council Wales funded project Winter Sparks, supporting it in the design and publication of Riverside Zine 2022. The zine shares the creative writing and artwork of Muslim girls in Riverside, Cardiff in English, Welsh and Arabic.

The press is currently open for novel submissions from writers living in the UK, especially from writers of colour and working class writers living in Wales. It has also recently launched its Lucent Dreaming Prize for poetry, flash fiction and short stories, on the theme of hope. The competition closes for entries 31st May 2022, with its flash fiction and poetry longlists to be judged by Matt Kendrick and Kandace Siobhan-Walker respectively.