It all started with this tweet.
I've been part of tweeting and RT-ing names of writers and illustrators of colour ever since I've been active on Twitter. Every day someone asks and everyday we all tweet and tag and the transient nature of Twitter has been its failure to generate anything more permanent for our audiences.
You might know me as a talkative storyteller or an author running workshops or giving lectures. But I'm a writer first and a shy one at that. I'm a pretend extrovert and all the joys of organising from the grassroot seemed overwhelming for someone who lives inside the pages of her notebook.
But the urge to do something has overcome my fear of starting something new that would drive me away from my writing. So here we are.
Why do we need this resource?
I tried to share some web pages that Matt Imrie created as the first list. Then we were delighted when Breaking New Ground came along and partnered with Booktrust Represents. I also talked to couple of people in the US working on something similar and the size of the job intimidated me.
However as an author myself, I find that many readers and booksellers don't know us, not many teachers read our books in classrooms, not many parents (even families of colour) don't know about our books.
What is this resource aiming to be?
This resource will be a showcase of British kidlit authors and illustrators of colour to the wider world. However it will never be exhaustive or comprehensive.
It is up to creators to upload their details onto the website. We may invite people who we would love to see on the website to upload their details. However, if you prefer not to be here for whatever reason, that's your right and we respect it.
We will aim to showcase books, lists, resources, topic finders and stuff as we go along (as I figure out how to get help, get funding, get more volunteers).
We will aim to connect with publishers and agents to ask their authors and illustrators to register.
We will work with organisations across the UK who are willing to support and lend a hand to solve the problem of discovering new and established kidlit creators of colour working in the UK.
This resource doesn't intend to be an academic document, fully researched and linked to ISBN and all that.
We will have a data protection policy in place. We will never sell or give your information to anyone without your permission.
So What Now?
After researching a number of websites to host a directory of books and authors, researching funding and talking to those who have tried other forms of support for writers of colour, I (Chitra Soundar) gave up many times. The pandemic didn't help in reducing my anxiety. Then I had to look after family and as I kept retweeting names of writers of colour and illustrators of colour over and over again, I gave up many a times. Then Bookshop.org materialised. I was already asking for a service that will help indies unite, and help authors and influencers reach more readers. Bookshop.org has a fantastic affiliate system which as an author I used. Then I realised that this can be the answer to the discovery problem I was trying to solve for British kidlit creators of colour like me. In a week, I setup the shopfront for Bookshop.org and this website and here we are - hoping to become the showcase for British kidlit creators of colour. We want to bring the world to our books.
The Colourful Bookshop brings together a shopfront on Bookshop.org to promote picture books, fiction, fiction for YA, non-fiction, poetry and illustrators' work in a single place with the ability for readers, teachers and librarians to buy from their indie as well. And through this website combined with the bookshop, we aim to support new and established writers to mingle and shout about each other's books.
From the beginning, we were keen for existing working authors and illustrators of colour in the UK to get attention while also benefiting UK indie bookshops. And so we have setup a shop with 300 books to start with - with authors that we already know.
But the work is far from over! We need to list the work of every kidlit writer and illustrator of colour, curate lists for holidays, school topics, reading interests and showcase new books etc. Slowly we will begin to do that.
So here's to new beginnings!
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