Megaphone is open for applications until 31st January 2021. The website has been updated with details of our mentors and I’ll be adding more information about the editors and authors who are supporting us in the next few days.
Happy new year! I really do hope that 2021 will be happy, or at least happier than 2020 (can’t be hard, can it). It feels as if over the past 12 months, life has simultaneously shrunk – so many activities that we used to enjoy have vanished – and expanded like some sort of nightmarish wave, overwhelming us with concern for our friends and relatives, work worries, child-care, home education, Zoom fatigue… It is fair to say that hasn’t been the year any of us wanted. I am excited however to be able to offer one opportunity at least in 2021 – support for writers of colour who want to create great stories for children. These stories – YOUR stories – will not stop being wanted and needed just because of this virus.
I’m so aware that the full effects of the pandemic on society and on emerging writers won’t be known for many months or even years in the future. There will be an effect though; it seems impossible that there wouldn’t. I would like to know how the pandemic has affected children’s writers of colour – emerging and published- in particular. Yesterday I tweeted a poll asking whether writers have found it harder or easier to write in 2020. So far the majority is ‘harder’ but there’s a significant minority for ‘easier’. So far around 64% have said it was harder, 25 % easier. What was your experience?