When I left school, approximately two hundred years ago, one of the career paths suggested to me was librarianship. Little did they know.  Into the context of cuts comes news from The Bookseller of a new  report from the Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals (CILIP), which has found that, in libraries:

The workforce (…) has lower ethnic diversity than the national UK Labour Force Survey average statistic, with 96.7% of workers identifying as “white”, almost 10% above the national workforce average.

These numbers immediately raise some questions in my mind. Librarians are gatekeepers of children’s literature. Among many other important duties, they guide and advise parents and children in selecting books and resources, they arrange events and author visits, they order children’s and YA fiction and non-fiction books and resources and make them available to readers. Parents and children are important library users in every sense.

If the gatekeepers for children’s fiction are so much less ethnically diverse than the children and parents they serve, what are the results for the quality of library service? Will the librarians have the same priorities as the library users?

Are they best placed to help the 100% of children in their communities who need the right books at the right time?

Members of CILIP also vote for the most prestigious children’s literature prizes in Britain: the Carnegie and Greenaway awards. Winning or being shortlisted for these awards makes a significant positive difference to a writer’s career, at least in the short to medium term. It raises their profile, not least with schools and libraries, and though it may not necessarily result in sales out of bookshops, it is likely to lead to more events such as school visits and festival appearances, which can be a large part of a writer’s small income.

Does the statistic above mean that only 3.3% of the people who are eligible to nominate and vote for the most prestigious awards for children’s literature in Britain are Black, Asian or other non-white group, including mixed heritage?

If so, might this have an influence on the books and authors that are nominated, shortlisted and win?

Would a more ethnically diverse workforce in libraries lead to different nominations, shortlists and winners of the Carnegie and Greenaway – and perhaps as a result to some reassessment of what constitutes ‘outstanding’ literature for children today?

I should stress that I don’t mean to disparage the achievements of past Carnegie and Greenaway winners. But I believe we should be asking these questions. They are not purely academic (although they are very interesting questions in that sense – cultural values are not absolute, and changing the gatekeepers is very likely to change what gets through the gates). They are also practical questions that impact on the careers, livelihoods, ability to survive financially and keep writing, of BAME children’s authors in Britain.

I’m delighted that CILIP have undertaken this essential research. The link to their executive summary is here: http://www.cilip.org.uk/about/projects-reviews/workforce-mapping
I look forward to reading the full report when it is available. In particular I would like to see
1) how far children’s librarians as a sub-group conform to the statistics above, and
2) a break-down by library authority. In Birmingham, for example,  with 53.1% defining themselves as White British, 13.5% Pakistani, 6% Indian and 4.4% Black Caribbean, do we still have a library and information workforce that are 93.7% white?

It is however encouraging to read  here that Nick Poole, CILIP Chief Executive Officer, said:

“Of greater concern are the significant gaps in pay equality and diversity which the results have highlighted…CILIP is calling for a National Library and Information Skills Strategy which will enable us to attract high-quality talent from diverse backgrounds into the profession (…)”

Maybe my careers adviser wasn’t so far off the mark after all.

—
http://www.cilip.org.uk/news/landmark-uk-information-workforce-survey-reveals-ongoing-gender-pay-gap

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/cs/Satellite?c=Page&childpagename=Planning-and-Regeneration%2FPageLayout&cid=1223096353923&pagename=BCC%2FCommon%2FWrapper%2FWrapper

The Inclusive Minds Collective are launching a new phase of the “Everybody In” social media campaign, which encourages children’s books to include ALL children. It aims to remind everyone of the need to write, illustrate, publish, sell, buy, borrow and explore diverse and inclusive books.
Inclusive Minds’ goals are very much in harmony with Megaphone’s and I’m delighted to support them. This is their website: http://www.inclusiveminds.com/ where you can sign up to their newsletter.

If you want to join in #EverybodyIn, here are some suggestions of what you could be doing:

• Declaring your support for the campaign – this might be just a simple tweet about the need for more inclusive/diverse books, or perhaps you’d even be willing to join those who are tweeting photos of themselves with a sign saying “I’m In”. (I’ll be doing this! Ideally once I’ve managed to make myself look presentable J )
• Retweeting campaign tweets from @InclusiveMinds
• Relating the campaign to something you are already doing or a something you are planning to do, be it a book, a project or an event.
• Reminding people whythis is so important, e.g. “I’m in because….”
• If you’re a publisher or bookseller, sharing the fact that you have signed up to the Inclusive Minds charter and/or urging others to do the same.
• If you already know all about it, introducing the campaign to new people
• Following and adding #EverybodyIn to your tweets.

Look out for @InclusiveMinds tweets, starting later this week, to signal the start of #EverybodyIn!

 

I thought I’d do a quick update about what’s going on with Megaphone at the moment. Basically, it’s all about getting the word out, so please, do pass the news of this great opportunity on to anyone you know who who could benefit from it. I have just been at the Writers’ Toolkit event – Writing West Midlands’ annual writing conference, held at Birmingham University – where I sat on two panels and had lots of interesting and inspiring chats with writers about Megaphone. Everyone was so positive – so if I saw you there, thank you!
I’ve also just finished addressing the last of the mail shot which I’m sending out to every England-based university that teaches creative writing even slightly. Wow, that was an odyssey. Mostly because of the mysterious ways of printers (will print only entire document, not individual page; will only ever print page 2 skewed, etc.). Anyway, it is now DONE – despite having taken about a week longer than I expected, entirely due to my printer – and is going out. I wanted to send a paper mail shot in this case (rather than email) because I know how many emails departments can be deluged with, and besides there are some nice flyers which I think would look lovely on a departmental noticeboard. If you would like some of these for your local arts centre, library, etc. please do email me at megaphone.write@gmail.com and I will happily send you some (but please, only if you’re sure they’ll be accepted – sometimes venues are happy to take flyers and sometimes they aren’t, in my experience).

Oh and finally – this exciting event is coming up soon in Wolverhampton: http://www.exploreyourarchive.org/452/ I love archives, love history and would love to go to this – but am booked onto another event at the same time. Anyone who can go, though – I’m sure it will be brilliant and inspiring (and could inspire a historical novel for children, your Megaphone project? 🙂 )

Happy writing!
Leila

1. A great opportunity for writers of colour here  – courtesy of Sable magazine and The Literary Consultancy.

http://www.sablelitmag.org/creative-institute/bespoke-services/free-reads-tlc-partnership/

And

2) thrilled to say that Birmingham has a new publisher, specialising in poetry AND poetry for children! (whoop whoop). The Emma Press is looking for poetry and prose pamphlet proposals. Writers are invited to send in 10 poems or the full prose manuscript, which will be read by editors Rachel Piercey and Emma Wright. The deadline is Sunday 13^th December 2015 and full details can be found on their website: http://theemmapress.com/about/submissions/

If you’re not already following Megaphone on Twitter, we’re @MegaphoneWrite over there and would love to see you. My own Twitter handle is @LeilaR .

The Voice have also just featured the project with a smashing picture of Catherine Johnson, one of the masterclass leaders and author of at least sixteen books, most recently,nominated for the Carnegie medal.

http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/unique-scheme-launches-help-black-writers?quicktabs_nodesblock=2

The Carnegie Award is the Man Booker prize of children’s literature, and I’m super excited to hear that two Megaphone writers are on that list – Catherine Johnson for The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo, a wonderful novel about a real historical character who rose like a phoenix out of terrible circumstances and built her own life out of stories, and Alex Wheatle for his first YA novel, the funny and moving Liccle Bit, about a boy who’s caught in a situation that’s only getting worse… and how he tries to get out of it. I loved both these books. Huge congratulations to the authors!

BBC Radio WM this evening:

I’ll be on BBC WM (95.6 FM) talking about Megaphone at 6.30 pm this evening – with Arshia Riaz on Midlands Masala. Very excited that I get to feel glam in the Mailbox for half an hour 🙂

(let’s face, it’s just me typing this. I don’t know whether to refer to myself in the third person, or with the royal ‘we’, or what. Also, I’m sorry there are still no pictures on this blog).

Anyway, Spread the Word are the writer development agency for London – which is a massive responsibility I should think. Happily they’re living up to it by publishing this very important report: Writing The Future: Black and Asian Writers and Publishers in the UK market-place.  It provided welcome context for Megaphone, and I believe everyone should read it.

They’ve also just published an interview in which I mostly describe a Bookshop Utopia:

http://www.spreadtheword.org.uk/resources/view/interview-with-leila-rasheed

Come one, come all!

We take applications until 24th December 2014, and will long-list them all together after that date (so there’s no need to rush to be the first to send yours in).

Read through the FAQs Page first of all, and check you have all the information you need. Then go to the How to Apply page and follow the instructions.

When you send in the application you’ll get an auto-reply which you should take as proof that we’ve received your application. There will also be a link to a very short survey – you don’t have to fill this in but if you do, it’ll give us really useful information that we can use to improve Megaphone, and we’ll be very grateful. It’s anonymous and not linked to your application at all.

Good luck! Can’t wait to read your great stories.

I have a short piece about Megaphone in The Asian Writer, today: http://theasianwriter.co.uk/2015/10/a-new-scheme-hopes-to-promote-bme-voices-in-childrens-literature/