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Penguin Random House (PRH) has announced it is to sponsor the Book Room of the Black Ballad Weekender, which will take place at Islington’s Business Design Centre on 23rd to 24th August.
PRH will partner with Black Ballad, the media platform for black women, as it celebrates its 10-year anniversary with the Black Ballad Weekender – the platform’s first ever festival.
The Book Room has been co-curated by PRH, and will feature talks and signings from authors including Diana Evans, Charmaine Wilkerson, Phoebe Mcintosh and Kelechi Okafor, as well as a panel of Penguin professionals offering guidance to aspiring writers.
PRH will also have a stand at the festival to provide information about its social impact programmes and routes into careers in publishing. The festival’s bookselling partner will be Round Table Books who will host author signings at their stand.
Author and editor in chief for Black Ballad, Jendella Benson, said: "We are so excited to bring the spirit of Black Ballad’s book-related editorial to life across two days. The programme caters to our audience’s varied and diverse literary interests, and celebrates the contributions that Penguin’s Black women authors and professionals make to the British literary culture."
Amelia Fairney, Penguin general’s communications director who has co-curated the Book Room events line-up with Jendella, said: "We are thrilled to partner with Black Ballad on this exciting events series in the Weekender’s Book Room. It’s a fantastic chance to showcase Black women’s voices in the world of literature in what we know will be a celebratory and stimulating environment. We can’t wait for Black Ballad’s readers to join our authors and colleagues in Islington later this summer."
The wider festival will comprise of more than 40 panels, workshops, interviews and keynotes, featuring nearly 100 Black women and non-binary people including Candice Brathwaite, Reni Eddo-Lodge, Dawn Butler and Dorothy Koomson.
The 2,000 Black women who attend will also get to enjoy a retail space with dozens of Black-owned brands to shop from and a Black-owned food court sponsored by Just Eat.
Since launching in 2014, the Black Ballad platform has published thousands of articles written by over 500 Black female and non-binary writers for audiences across culture, beauty, careers, health, love, families, books and more, paying these creators nearly £1,000,000 in the process.
Tickets for The Black Ballad Weekender are available now and can be found at: blackballad.co.uk/events/the-black-ballad-weekender-24 or eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-black-ballad-weekender-24-tickets-901466008097