 Hello, everybody. Ooh, lovely. Hi. My name is Maxine Ponce-Webster, and I'm a producer at the British Library. I'm thrilled to welcome you to tonight's event with Mallory Blackman and Jackie Kay. Tonight, we are celebrating Mallory Blackman's long-awaited autobiography, Just Satan, which delves into the life of this natural storyteller and who defied expectations and inspired a generation. We at the British Library are thrilled that next year, we will be presenting an exhibition on Mallory, displaying previously unseen material from her own archive alongside books and manuscripts from the library's collections. Keep your eye out for it coming in November 2023. As well as all of you who are gathered here in person at the British Library tonight, we are streaming this event. We have people joining us online and also in libraries in Bristol, Plymouth, Worcester, and Cambridgeshire through the Living Knowledge Network. Hello and welcome. Those of you watching online can submit questions via the form just below the video, and we'll read out as many as we can later on. On your web page, you can also buy a copy of Just Satan from the British Library Bookshop. Those of you here in the room can also ask questions, so please raise your hand when the time comes and wait for a microphone to come to you so that those online can also hear your question. You'll also be able to buy a signed copy of Just Satan from the British Library Bookshop. On to our speakers. Tonight, Mallory is in conversation with another literary legend. Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh. A poet, novelist, and writer of short stories, she has enjoyed great acclaim for her work for both adults and children, and was a third modern maca, the Scottish poet laureate from 2016 to 2021. Her first novel, Trumpet, won the author's club first novel award, and the Guardian Fiction Prize. She is also the author of three collections of stories with Piccador. Why don't you stop talking? Wish I was here, and reality, reality. Two poetry collections, Firam Bantam, and her memoir, Red Dust Road. She is professor of creative writing at Newcastle University, and was also chancellor of the University of Salford. And Mallory Blackman. Mallory Blackman has written over 70 books for children and young adults, including the Noughts and Crosses series, Thief, and the science fiction thriller, Chasing the Stars. Many of her books have also been adapted for stage and television, including a BAFTA award-winning BBC production of Pig Heart Boy, a pilot theater stage adaptation of Noughts and Crosses, as well as the major BBC production of Noughts and Crosses, which saw its second season released earlier this year. In 2005, Mallory was honored with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her distinguished contribution to the world of children's books. In 2008, she received an OBE for her services to children's literature. And between 2013 and 2015, she was the children's laureate. Most recently, Mallory became the first YA and children's author to be awarded the prestigious Penn Pinter Prize. Please welcome to the stage Mallory Blackman in Jackie K. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks. Hi, everyone. Hello, everyone. You all look very cosy, don't they? Very cosy. Yes, I look like we just dreamt them up, but they aren't here. It's really a huge pleasure and an honor to be here with you and Mallory in the British Library and to be in a building that you love. And especially, it seems really fitting that this is being live-streamed to libraries all over the place. So, hello to all the libraries out there. The libraries out in other places, north and south, east and west, because you're a great lover of libraries. It just seems really, really important that we should be in the library and that this should be going out to libraries because libraries changed your life. Oh, absolutely. Gosh, I mean, we wouldn't be having this conversation now if it wasn't for libraries, because my thing was, we couldn't afford books, so I was constantly at my local library and just reading book after book after book. And it's lovely because I got to know the public librarians, so then they would recommend books to me. And by the time I was like 10, 11, I'd kind of read practically everything in the children's library, so they started giving me, I remember the first kind of adult book that I got given to read was Jane Eyre. And that was when I was 11. And the public librarian said, try this one. And I remember kind of taking it home and I started reading it. And the first chapter, I thought, oh my God, this is a bit dry, but you know, so I kept with it. And then I got sucked into it. And I loved it so much that by the time I got to the end, I closed the book, took a breath, and then opened it again at the beginning and read all the way through it. And it's still one of my favorite books. And then another book that the public librarian gave me was Rebecca, and Rebecca by Daphne de Moria. And again, I just thought this is amazing. And the whole fact that this story's about a woman who died until we never get to really see her, but we get to see her through all the different characters. And I thought that book was so stunning. So they gave me lots of books and then I kind of explored the adult library on my own and read sort of things that were highly unsuitable. So like Jacqueline Suzanne Novels, The Valley of the Dolls and all sorts, all sorts of sexy goings on. But that said, I kind of just worked my way through that as well. But I kind of feel so lucky because there is something about browsing and being able to just kind of pick up a book and read a bit or read the back and put it down. And it's that experience, it's very hard to get that experience online. It's something about the physicality of just picking up a book, being attracted by the cover or not. And I've discovered so many gems that way. So I just feel incredibly grateful that I had libraries within walking distance because that's the other thing because a number of local libraries have been shut down and they have central libraries. But for a lot of people, that means a bus or a train ride. And if you can't afford the fare, then you're stuffed. So I kind of feel that the way that the library service has been kind of decimated is such a scandal. And it really is, it's shocking. And the way that you support libraries is fantastic. Yay! I mean, because we all know, I mean, being in this building right now, that the importance of being able to have free access to education, to entertainment, to broadening our minds, to defining ourselves, to helping us become who we are, to sheltering us, to offering us refuge, to keeping us sane. Well, you see, that's what they're talking about now is using them as warm centres, which is shocking that we need those in 21st century Britain, but actually having them as warm places for people to go and safe places for people to go. And I know as a child that they were my safe haven and I could do my homework there in peace and I was warm and I was comfortable and nobody was looking to turf me out and it was free. And it's one of the few kind of egalitarian organisations yet we have in a country where you can be rich or poor or whatever, you can still use your library if you can get to one, if you've got one within kind of, you know, that's accessible to you, but I think that's what makes them so free. My dad used to say a library card in your hand is a sign of democracy. Yeah, absolutely. And I said to him, how would you describe a library diary? And he went, it's a book festival every day. And he's not wrong, I love that. It's a love card, it's a book festival every day. But yeah, and young and old as well, there's something about that kind of egalitarian that for the very young, it's just as exciting as it is, as it can be for the old. Exactly. I used to love these wee brown cards as well that they came in. Yeah, but now it's a plastic card. I mean, I miss that, it's a shame. I like watching the librarians put all the things in different orders, kind of. Well, my mum did her first computing course at the local library, you know, so, and this was when she was in her late 70s. And they had specific courses for kind of OAPs and things. I mean, she loved, so she goes on a little laptop and whatever, but as I said, I mean, they just provide such a service. Yeah, I was really struck in reading, just saying by all of the things that I didn't know about you that are in the book. And I don't want to spoil the book for people, so it's kind of one of those delicate things, isn't it? Have a conversation, pretend not to be having a conversation. We can talk in a secret code and see if they could decide for it. Spoiler alert. Yes, spoiler alert. I ended feeling really a sense of real rage and outrage and also a sense of recognition because of all of the different things that you write about, specifically the ways in which that you write about racism and all of the different ways in which you can encounter racism from the people that don't think that you're going to be able to succeed from the careers, advisors, teachers to the treatment that you get in hospitals, to treatment in the cinema. All of these, one after the other stories, they kind of have, I mean, most people that have experienced racism in this country will have their own set of experiences and there's something really kind of, I don't know, I was trying to think about that a lot because I've experienced racism myself a lot, but I was trying to think about, you know, that it was so upsetting and angry making, angry making to read about yours. And I was just wondering what that was like to come to the memoir form itself and to go back over particular incidents like that, particularly these incidents of racism for now, we'll talk about. Well, I mean, it was a challenge, I'm not going to lie, but I mean, the book is divided into sections and one of the sections is called Anger. And I start that by saying, you know, apologies for young, if young years are present, but anger gets shit done. You know, it really does, and it's that sense of anger that propels you into doing things. And in my case, it was writing, but it's that sense of kind of injustice and like the spur for writing Noughts and Crosses for me was the part of it was the Stephen Lawrence case and watching the docu drama on television and just being so outraged by the way that the family were treated by the police and just things in my own life that I kind of felt, okay, I'm ready to talk about this now. And it's one of those things where it gets to the point where I suppose, what was interesting to me was things like something would happen to me, and I think, here we go, and you get through it. And then when I was kind of traveling, there's an incident in the book where I talk about traveling through customs with my husband who's white. And so I kind of was going through the green channel first and I got pulled over as per usual because nine times out of 10, I get pulled over. And it was, where have you just traveled from and he wanted to, could you open up your case, please? And then my hubby came rocking up behind me because he was kind of his bag sort of later on the carousel. And then as soon as the, and Neil came up to me and said, well, what's the problem? And the custom officer said, are you two together? And I said yes, he said, oh, you can go then. And I kind of thought, okay. And then, and poor Neil, we got through the green custom, the green sort of doorway. And I went. And I was furious, I mean, but it's not his fault. But it was kind of, it is this thing of, you know, I'm not saying by any means that all white people are racist. Of course they are not. But I think the majority of white people do benefit from racism in some manner, shape or form. Even if it is just, if I send in an application form and my name isn't a sort of Anglicised name and somebody else sends in a form and all the other details could be exactly the same. But if my name sounds kind of foreign, then I'm less likely to be invited to an interview and so on. And it's, you know, a case that Neil deGrasse Tyson was saying, he was coming out of a shop with, and a white guy was waiting there. And as soon as he went through the barriers, the white guy did, and the alarm went off and the security guards kind of leapt on him as the white guy went strolling on because they knew that if the two of them were going through, the security guards were more likely to stop him as a black man than they would the white person. Even a thief gets benefits. So, you know, so it is this thing of, you know, in a way it was almost like, okay, here we go again kind of thing. And to the point of I thought, I shouldn't have to accept this as part of my everyday life in the way that, you know, if I go into Marks and Sparks and I'm buying something, I always walk out with my receipt in my hand in case the alarm goes off so I can say, I bought this, you just didn't take the security tag off or whatever. I have to modify my behaviors in certain places because, you know, and I find that kind of, you know, and I just think, well, I shouldn't have to do that, but I do. Yeah, you see, I find that distressing, the idea that there's this kind of almost invisible other and the invisible other is there in present form, but it's also there inside your head. Yeah. And it's the idea that your own actions are in response to this invisible presence that might come up to you and say this or might come and say that. And in a sense, I was thinking when I was reading the book because the careers teacher and the other, and the different doctors, you know, or the people that have said you're not going to pass your A-level English or whatever, you'll say, so take that, Mrs. T, you'll see. And that's that invisible other as a person because in a sense, that's in response to thinking, you know, so I proved you wrong. But in a sense, our lives shouldn't have to be about proving people, white people wrong. Yeah, but you know what? I just kind of feel like, in a way, my careers teacher telling me that, you know, when I said I wanted to be an English teacher and she said, well, black people don't become teachers, why don't you be a secretary instead? And when she said, you know, and I kind of feel like I made it my mission to prove her wrong. So if anything, I worked harder. And what it did also was it helped me when I was getting all my rejection letters, when I decided I wanted to be a writer and I was getting all these rejection letters, I had the experience of going through the careers teacher and what she said and proving her wrong as a way of kind of saying, well, okay, I proved her wrong, I'm going to prove all these editors wrong. And if they don't like this book, well, maybe they're like the next one. And if this publishing house doesn't like this book, maybe another publishing house will. So it all kind of builds resilience. And I think, you know, and I used to go to writing courses, a number of writing courses. And we had writers who were so brilliant. They were so good, much better than me, but they'd get one and two rejection letters and we'd never see them again. And for me, as far as I was concerned, I was going to be there till I was 90, you know? I wasn't going anywhere. And I kind of made a deal with myself. I would kind of wait till I had my thousandth rejection letter and then I'd have a serious think about whether it was actually going to happen or not. And I got to 82, so, you know, but you know, but it was this thing of, I think it teaches you resilience and it's this thing of, and for which I'm grateful. And I look back on things that have happened in my life and really terrible incidents, but I try and learn from all of them. Yeah, I think because in this memoir, you have a sense of the multiverse and the other possible malaries. If this road hadn't been taken or if that accident hadn't happened or Huddersfield hadn't happened. What would have been the outcome then if, for instance, with your sickle cell anemia that you overheard the doctor say that you would be dead by the time you were 30? And what would the lives of your parents have been like? So you're kind of constantly asking the question of this other self. And do you think that has to do with being the kind of interest in the other self out there in the multiverse? I think that has to do with your being always imaginative or do you think that has to do with kind of almost a survival technique? I think it's a bit of both. I think it's this, I mean, it's the same for all of us. You kind of, we hit these moments where you can make a choice A or choice B and it's almost like, you know, sort of, if you take choice A, then B is close to you and it's close to you forever in some instances. I mean, obviously it depends what it is, but I just, I've always wondered, well, if I'd done this rather than that, what would have happened? Like if I'd stayed in computing, where would I be now? Because by the time I was in my mid-20s, I hated my job, oh my God. But I kind of think, well, maybe, and part of the reason I decided I was gonna try giving up my job for a year and I was gonna try and make a go of becoming a writer was because I heard the doctor say that I would be dead before I was 30. So as far as I was concerned, I had nothing to lose. Now, if I hadn't heard that, if I'd really been asleep and I hadn't heard that, would I still be in computing? And I rather suspect I would be, or if I tried to write, it would have been in my 50s rather than in my 20s. So I kind of feel like, actually, it was one of the worst days of my life to hear that, but it was also one of the best days of my life because it gave me the kick up the butt to kind of just try and make a go of writing. It's a good attitude to have. Well, you know. Because it means that even the bad things turn out to be. Well, yeah, I kind of like to think I'm a silver lining kind of girl, you know? Yeah. And so it's kind of like, and even negative things, I think, okay, you know, that happened, but what can I learn from it and how can I move on from it? And just keep going, just keep moving. Because, you know, and I kind of feel what my, the incident with my career's teacher taught me especially was whatever you want to do in life, there are always going to be people who say, this is not for you or you can't do this or gonna try and stop you in some manner, shape or form. But if you really want to do it, you've got options. You can either let them stop you in your tracks or you can stand there arguing with them and waste your time doing that or you find a way to go around them. And my thing has always been to find a way to go around them and sometimes it takes longer because when my career's teacher said she wouldn't give me a reference, but she would give me a reference to go and do business studies at Poly and I went to Poly knowing it was a mistake because I had no interest at all in business studies. Oh my God. And I'd be in economics lectures and they'd be talking about macro whatever and I'd just think, oh, kill me now. But that said, with the price elasticities and inelasticities and whatever and I really, really couldn't care less. And so when I was rushed to hospital halfway through the first term, it was sort of like, it gave me a chance. I had to come back down to London to recuperate, gave up my place, but then I applied to go dismiss off my own back because I had my English literature A-level results by then, all my A-level results. So I applied to them off my own back. And someone else, another teacher to write me a reference and I got in. And so it just took a year longer. I mean, I ended up not going there in the end. Of course, this is like, yeah. I never went, I went into computing to make some money for a year until the call started and I got hooked on computers, so there we go. But at least I know I got in. But you wouldn't have written a hacker if you hadn't got... Well, exactly. And hacker, I remember reading hacker with my son and I remember just the joy of finding you as a writer, as a mother of a black boy, to find these books and to find books that reflected him and he still talks about that. I mean, he's 34 now and just tell me I don't look old enough. You don't, you don't. Oh, now did you, now did you. I said to Mallory earlier, you're a 62, meaning you're born in 62. She went, no, I'm not. I mean, no, I'm not. I mean, you're born in... I'm 60, I'm 60. You're born in 60. You're born in 62, just a year apart. And it was an extraordinary thing, just going through all of the books, all of your books with him. And, you know, going from the ages where you'd read them out to him to the age where then he would be reading them himself, then you'd read them alongside. So as you were also reading what he was reading, which I like to do. I love that doing that with my daughter. We kind of, I'd say, oh, you've got to read this. And then, oh, she does the same with me. And then we kind of discuss it afterwards. I love that. Yeah, it's fantastic, isn't it? It's really, really, really amazing. And so we've had you in our house. And so many people here have had you in their houses. And it's an interesting thing that because you have this complete intimacy with your imaginative world. And I've had you in my house. Yeah, in my house. Really amazing. And it's a really amazing thing because in the one hand you have this relationship which I'm sure all of you have, a relationship to your fiction and to knowing you in that way. And then we now have this relationship to memoir and knowing you in a very different way. And I'm just really interested in how different that feels to you having written a memoir. Does it feel very different to having written books for children, young people, young adults, and tiny ones? Absolutely, because the other ones they're all flights of the imagination. And sometimes I put my characters through the ringer. But at the end of it I type the end and I kind of move on to the next one. I mean, some characters really stay with me like the characters in the Lawson Crosses series. Yeah, but that said, they're all flights of fantasy whereas this one is about me. And that was so challenging because it was like, I mean, I'm not gonna lie, there was part of me thinking, do you really wanna do this? And so people know your business, as my mum would say. But that said, I kind of, I guess what I wanted to do is just say, you know what, whatever we're going through, whatever traumas or whatever we're all going through, you're not alone. And it's this thing of just letting people know that we all get knocked down. But I think the trick to life for me is if you get knocked down seven times, you get up eight. And that's it. And it's about kind of, you just, you gotta keep going. And the real moments of despair I've had where I haven't had a clue how I was gonna get out of things, it's just kind of one foot after the other, one day after the next and you just keep going. Did it make you revisit in the process of writing in memoir, make you revisit those moments in the kind of depth or detail that surprised you? Did you have easy access to, I mean, through notes or through your own memory? You've got a memory for photographic memory for conversations, you can remember conversations in verbatim, can't you? Yeah, well, yeah, I used to be able to, I mean that, now I'm not as good at the hot on that, but yeah, I could remember conversations for beta. I used to drive my hubby nuts. It's all like. Not good to have an argument. In 1987, you said, and I quote, but it really used to drive in mad, but it was this thing of having to live through it again, to write it, and so it's like dredging up all those memories. Memories, quite frankly, that I would be quite happy to leave behind me or I thought I'd let go, but then I had to kind of go and retrieve to write, and that was a challenge and that was painful and the section about finding out that I had sickle cell and then this guy saying, the doctor saying I'd be dead before I was 30, or the section where we lived in a homeless shelter for a while. Again, it was kind of living through all that and that was kind of a challenge, but that said, again, I suppose my thing was just saying, okay, I've done this, there have been moments where I really didn't know which way to turn, but all of that, the book is not just about my writer's life, it's about my own life as well, my own journey to this point and I kind of just wanted, I felt it was the right time to share that. Because I found it really interesting in moving when you were describing being homeless and being in a homeless shelter and like three different houses really, in that period that your school friends didn't know and that you had to kind of go these long distances, walk three miles to school, three miles back. Three miles back for school and longer in some, depending on which house you were in at that time and that your school friends didn't know and that you would go to the sit-in-the-piano room because you felt self-conscious of your clothes smelling damp because there was no proper ventilation, so you would take yourself away and none of them ever found out. And I found out. In fact, I think my good friends probably found out like five years ago about that. I never spoke about it, never spoke about it. And why was that, do you think? Again, I think part of it was just feeling like it's over and done, we've moved on, part of it was feeling like it was not something I wanted to share because it was so painful and so it was kind of, well, why would I talk about it? But I do feel sometimes I kept things too much to myself and it was almost like feeling like just asking for help was, I think I felt that asking for help might have been a sign of weakness and it's not. It really isn't and it's not, asking for help is not a sign that you're weak, it's a sign that you're wise and you know that you need help with something so you should never be afraid to ask or just say, you know what, I'm struggling, I'm struggling but I kind of felt I found it very hard to do that. So my outlet was writing and I would write stories and poems for my own amusement but also I wrote stories and poems to express how I was feeling and that was from the time I was like seven, eight, I'd start writing stories and poems but as a teen I wrote very angry, mostly poetry just expressing how I was feeling and kind of, I mean poetry I would never show anybody but it really was, it was my way of just, that was my safety valve, it was my way of letting all that out and I remember when I was 18 and I'd just come back down from Poly and I'd given up my place, I didn't have a job, I had no, I had exactly, I had five pounds in my purse and I decided I was gonna go up to the West End and window shop and so I blew it on a train ticket and a burger and chips or whatever and I had, and there's no light, I had two pence in my purse and I returned ticket back home and that was it, that's all the money I had in the world and I just thought okay, well, you know, this is it and I'm gonna go home and then I'm gonna have to try and find a job locally or whatever because there's no way I could afford to go back to the West End again, I had no money and I remember I was walking along Oxford Street and usually when I was going home to, because I'd had to go to Chan Cross Station, I'd walk along Oxford Street and then down Chan Cross Road and this time I happened to just walk down Wardle Street and at the top of Wardle Street there was a job center and I popped into the job center as I was there and I found a card that said for documentation assistant which is a glorified filing clock and I said well, okay, can you give me a bit more information about this and she phoned them up there and then and said oh, they want you to go for an interview now and the place that it was a software house just off Oxford Street and I thought well, okay, I might as well go because if they say can you come for an interview on Monday, I can't, I can't afford it, I haven't got the bus fare so I thought okay, I went for the interview and I got through the interview and they offered me the job there and then so then it was kind of, and if I hadn't gone down that particular road at that time, I wouldn't have got my job in computing and I stayed in computing for nine years and in that software house that's where I met my hubby so it was almost, it was like it was meant to be so it's all these things I think about now, where would I be if I had taken my usual route or where would I be if I just walked down Walder Street and hadn't gone into the job center and so it's those moments where you hit rock bottom and I really feel like, well, okay, seriously, the only way is up and I have to kind of believe that I think it's partly kind of- Onwards and upwards you see, is it kind of refrained through the boot? Yeah, exactly. Onwards and upwards. Yeah. And just saying our refrains that you, and you have these, you have a kind of rhythmic refrains that you use through the boot. Yeah. Because like you were saying earlier, the book's organized, if you like, not necessarily chronologically, but through, but thematically and the chapter on anger is brilliant because you quote Maya Angelou. Yeah. And the idea that Roth has, you see, and Audre Lorde wrote a lot about uses of anger too. And you write about the kind of the stereotype of the angry black women in our society and how black people generally can be cast in this role of the angry black person as a way of white people not necessarily needing to deal with racism and you write about that in a lot of detail which I found really refreshing because actually we're kind of taught as a society to either fear, anger, or to not express it or that to express it is a very negative thing but actually it's a much cleaner thing to express and to be able to say actually that pisses me off or I'm annoyed with that and then be able to move on and to have all of these things that go on under the surfaces and all this, what they call passive aggression. Yeah. And it's funny, you know, before passive aggression came in as an expression, I don't know what it was that people did. They were the equivalent of what we call Scotland's sleek it. Yeah. I think it's just a great word for passive aggression, sleek it. It's kind of doing things under the surface. But I must admit, because my hubby says I suffer from, I'm very passive aggressive because it is this thing of kind of like if I'm upset about something, it's fine. That's fine. Okay, that's fine. I'll just say it or whatever or you know, just kind of like saying something with a sort of a side, a side or whatever. But that said, I mean, I think also I've become better at just speaking my mind and I think the older I get, the better I get at it. And it is this thing of, you know, and I think it's all about how you channel your anger and channel it constructively rather than destructively. And so for me, it was about channeling it into writing books like Noughts and Crosses and Boys Don't Cry. And you know, and I think the first section is called Wanda and it was about the wonder of childhood and all the, and just being just, you know, eyes wide and just thinking, wow, isn't that wonderful? And but also knowing that the way my brain works seemed to be different to the way other people's brains work because, you know, I'd be like, if I left the house on my left foot on a Monday, then on Tuesday I'd have to leave the house with my right foot. I mean, that's the behavior I had. I was kind of, and you know, so talking to other people, they've said it sounds like I was neurodivergent because I had certain behaviors which I then suppressed or tried to kind of try and retrain myself not to do that. But I was someone who, you know, if I stepped on a crack then I'd have to step on a crack, all the cracks to get to school and then force myself not to. But that said, and for a while I really suppressed that, but then it took me a long time to embrace it because that's part of the fact that my mind, my work slightly differently to others, has actually fed my writing. And it's fed kind of my interests and it means I'm never stuck for what to write about or things in a different way. Well, I have had writer's block, actually, but I had it really badly once when I was, I've had it twice, but really badly once where I didn't write for like three, four months. And after about the first month I thought, oh my God, is my career over because I'd sit at the computer and nothing would come. So in the end what I did is I thought, right, stay away from the computer, find other creative things to do. And so what I did, I went to art galleries a lot more, I went to museums, I went to see plays, I went to see, I went to the cinema a lot more, I bought a book on how to draw because I can't draw to save my life, still can't, but I bought the book. You know, so, you know, and I just, and I started my piano lessons again, so I just surrounded myself with lots of creativity. Saxophone? And, you know, well, the saxophone I had for a while. But my piano, I just kind of, I started my lessons again, so I kind of did my grade two and stopped again, but there you go. So that said, it helped because it got me back into there. And then I thought I had an idea for a story and I thought, well, actually, it was about being different. So I wanted to write it in a different way. And so I thought, how about if I write it in narrative verse? And that's how one of my books, Cloudbusting, was born. And it was, again, it was like finding a different way and a different approach to kind of writing which worked and it broke the writer's block. Yeah, I think that one of the things that's really interesting about the book is how they bear you make the writing process itself, so if there were people that wanted to be writers and read the book, the book is full and chock full of different pieces of advice, you know, including you going along to a writing class for weeks and ended city lit and not having the courage to read your work out loud to the group and then finally, well, you should tell that bit of the story. Well, yeah, because when I knew I wanted to be a writer, I had no clue, didn't know anyone in publishing, didn't know how you got published. So I just happened to stumble across an organization called the City Lit and they're now in Covent Garden. So if you don't know, check them out because they do some brilliant, brilliant courses. And I went along and I did my saxophone lessons there and then I tried acting for a year and I was a dead loss. I mean, I was so bad. Oh my God, it's just embarrassing to me to even think about it, but anyway. Moving, stripping on, oh, I was terrible. Was it the delivery of the lines or the reviews? Yeah, it was like, oh, the sun. Yeah, it was like, to be, or not to be, I was awful. But I mean, oh my God, but what I loved was I loved coming up with the ideas for our improvisations and I loved doing that. And then I said that towards the end, people were going like, well, not even towards the end, in the first term, it was like, oh, Laurie, what do you think we should do for this one? And oh, Laurie, what do you think we should do for that one? And I loved coming up with the scenarios. I just hated acting them out. I mean, because I really wanted to be an actress. I did do it. I wanted to be an actor because I couldn't be an actress. Oh, well, I tried it, at least I tried it. But you know what? I don't know how an actress is really just a noob. Well, you never know. But you know, my tutor at the end of it said to me, you know what, Laurie? She said, you come up with some really interesting ideas. Have you ever thought of writing them down and telling them to stories? And I hadn't before that. Not to do it professionally. But I think it was also her way of saying, you're not an actress, love. And find something else. But you know, but that said, I thought, you know what? Actually, why don't I try and get right and try and get stuff published? So I went into a ways into writing class and with this wonderful tutor called Carol and she would give us exercises to do. And we'd have to do exercises in the class or she'd give us homework and we'd have to bring the stuff in. And I always did the homework and I always did the exercises. But every time she said, Laurie, would you like to read your workout? I'd say not today, Carol. Not today, Carol. Because I just, I was terrified of reading my stuff out in front of other people. And she put up with it for a while and then she said, and sorry if it's young years present, but she, you know, and then one time she just got exasperated and she said, she said, she said to me, Laurie, do you want to be a writer? And I said, more than anything else in the world. And then she said, well, I'm afraid you're gonna have to shit or get off the pot, laugh. Yeah, and I was so mortified and I just thought, oh my God, and everyone was cracking up laughing. But I thought, you know what? She's so right because if you're gonna do something, do it, don't muck about. Either do it or don't waste everybody else's time. So I kind of thought, and if you're a young year's present, she said, tinkle or get off the potty. So yeah, the revised version. But anyway, so, and that's been my philosophy ever since. If I'm gonna do something, just do it. You know, don't waste everybody's time, including my own. If you're gonna do something, do it. Go for it. Yeah, go for it. Yeah, absolutely. And also you seem to really like learning new things. Going to classes on writing screenplays and teaching yourself new things. It makes you think that how much of being a writer is about learning all of the time because you're constantly reading and you're constantly writing and you're constantly taking things in. And if one thing doesn't work, you can always practice, well, I call it crop rotation. One form doesn't work, then. Crop rotation works quite well. You can go on to a different kind of crop. But I'm going to think, ask one more thing and then just giving you notice out there to out there, the actual people and out there, the people that are out in the boots and in libraries all over the place. People can ask questions of you in a minute or two. It's really wonderful to talk to you about this. But I also wanted to just talk to you a little bit more about your writing about sickle cell anema and the kind of racism that you faced through illness because people often think that racism exists here, but it doesn't exist here. But of course, we know that we live in a society where racism's an education in the health service and the police service in society and it cuts right across. And this book really actually just going through, going through the whole book makes you just think of all of the different, just what a disease if you like and what a virus, how endemic racism is. And it made me feel really outraged that it's only very recently that you encountered a doctor who actually said to you, have you not been given any actual medication for your sickle cell anema? But in all fairness, part of that was my fault because, well, my fault was my responsibility because I'd had such horrendous treatment and outcomes in hospital that I decided about 15 years ago, I thought, right, death is gonna have to be tapping me on the shoulder before I go back into hospital. I'm done with this. So my doctor prescribed some strong pain killers for me so that every time I had a crisis, I could try and manage it at home. And I thought I am not going back into hospital, it's not gonna happen. And so, and because I never attended my outpatients appointments either, I didn't know that new treatments had been found. And so it was only when I had a really, really severe crisis a few years ago, no, three years ago and I ended up in hospital. And again, it was like, I couldn't walk, basically. I couldn't move so my hubby had to call an ambulance for me. And I ended up in hospital and whatever you do, don't get sick on a Friday. Oh my God. I mean, God bless the National Health Service. I'm excited for something. But Jesus, you find a doctor at the weekend. So I got sick on a Friday and the nurse said, okay, you're written up for some paracetamol. And I said, what do you mean I'm written up for paracetamol? She said, well, that's what we can give you, paracetamol. I said, I've got paracetamol at home. I said, I could do this at home. She said, I'm really sorry. And she said, well, when a doctor comes around on Monday, I'm sure they'll write you up for something else. So I spent the entire weekend just writhing in agony and feeling like my legs were being sawn off constantly. It's every time my heart beat, it was like saw, beat, saw, beat like that. And it was excruciating. And so the doctor arrived on the Monday and it was all apologetic and whatever. And he said, I've changed your notes and so we'll make sure that doesn't happen again. But he said, what treatments are you taking for your sickle cell? And I said, I'm taking painkillers. And he said, well, he said, we've got drugs and there's a drug that I'm on now. And it's a chemo drug called hydroxycarbonide. And so it also means that what it does is it kills my red blood cells, but then it means my body then, my bone marrow creates new blood cells, but they're fetal blood cells. And fetal blood cells don't sickle. They don't sickle as easily as normal ones. So it means I've had less crises. And if I have a crisis, it's less severe. But it was only, I've only been on that for three years. And I mean, sometimes because it's chemo, they kind of knock me out and I'm losing my hair and all the rest of it. But it's better than the alternative. So by the time I'm like 65, I'll probably be bald. But what I shall do is I'll just tattoo my head, won't I? So there's lots of colors. But anyway, so I digress. But yeah, it means I'm kind of losing my hair and they have various other side effects. But it means it kind of controls the sickle cell. But again, I only found out about that three years ago or something because I was not going to go into hospital otherwise. Because I mean, in all seriousness, I love the NHS. I think we should be all grateful to have it. Even though there are moves afoot to try and make us pay for it and American model with kind of having insurance to use it and whatever, which we must all fight against. But I think it's an amazing service. And I think when it comes to acute care, it's really good. But when it comes to chronic care and managing that, it needs work. And certainly it also means that I've had doctors, when I said to them, I have sickle cell being a thalassemia, say that doesn't exist. Oh, I think you've got that wrong there. And I just think, you know, and it's kind of this attitude from some doctors. Not all doctors, but some doctors, like I'm an idiot and I don't know what I'm talking about and I hate being patronised. And so that also was part of the reason I thought I am not going back into hospital. But as I said, but it's not all doctors, it's not all nurses. I've had some wonderful practitioners who've looked after me and who've been amazing. But I've also had practitioners who should find another job. I had one nurse scream when I was crying in pain, just scream at me to shut up. And then half an hour later, she came back and apologised. But I thought, you're in the wrong profession, my dear. You know, so it's all this kind of stuff that I've been through. I just thought I had it with these people. Yeah, yeah. And actually, the memoir is an interesting form for that feeling of you've had it with this and had it with. Because you can go through different things because I think as human beings, a growing sense of injustice at how one's treated, whether it be in hospital or in school or with different people, injustice or a sense of injustice is one of the things that we learn or we feel from when we're a very small child right through to an adult. And we can carry a sense of injustice around with us. Or wanting to speak out when you see. Or wanting to do something about it. Or wanting to make something visible. Yes, and wanting to make something visible that's been otherwise not visible. And there is a sense of political as well, outrage in the book that is very, very clear and strong. And I kind of totally admired that because I was going, yay! But you know what was almost like, reading it was almost like marching, you know, like being back in George Square. But that said, I kind of think, you know, there's a reason there's a section in it called Love. And it was about just kind of what even the men, all of this other stuff is going on. Embrace friends and embrace family and embrace love. And you know, and just keep your friends close and there is joy in life. And if you go looking for bad things, you'll find bad things. But if you go looking for good things, you can find good things. And there've been moments where I've just, that have kind of reaffirmed me that people on the whole are decent and good and sometimes some societal things need changing. But it's like, I tell the story about when my hubby and I were, we were driving up to see his mum in Edinburgh and we got, we were in an accident outside, just close to Darwin. He's Scottish. Yeah, he's Scottish. And I caught all the best people out there. And anyway, so anyway, we were driving and we were in an accident and we were on the hard shoulder and my daughter was like 18 months old. So I was just holding her in my arms thinking, please don't let anyone crash into the back of us. And so many people stopped on the hard shoulder and said, can we take you into town? Can we get you? Do you need any help? Can we get you this? Can you get me that? And it was lovely. And I was, I could feel myself checking up because it was like literally every three, four minutes someone else would stop and say, do you need some help? Can we help you? Can we take you there or whatever? And I just thought, isn't that lovely? And it's been things throughout my entire life there where people have just helped. And I just say sometimes it doesn't need big things. Sometimes it can just be a smile or a shoulder to cry on or just someone saying, do you need some help or just talking to you that can do it. Yeah, because kindness makes as big an impact. Oh, God, yeah. Oh, God, yeah. As cruelty. Yeah. Which is something that, when I think, especially the kindness of strangers, which is why we've got it as a handy-wee phrase. The kindness of strangers always surprises us and delights us and takes us back in some way. Absolutely. Reminds us what's actually possible. Oh, let me just say as well that last thing. As far, you know, the thing about Scottish people as well, I'm saying that because my hubbies might be looking in. Because my heritage is Barbada. So, of course, we have the best round and we have the, you know, just everything's the best. But it comes to Barbada, so there you go. Anyway, I digress. Carry on. So are we going to say? So you're going to answer some questions while we're here. I was actually, I was thinking about Scottish, Scottish people are an interesting mixture because you can't really play Scottish people a compliment. They always go, no, no, no, I'm not very good at that. Even if you say you're good at something. But if I'm in Nigeria and I pay somebody a compliment, they lean forward and go, really, tell me. I can't, I can't, I love that. I'm trying to work out which. Anyway, yeah, it's time. It's time to open it out to your people. It's been really wonderful talking to you, Mallory. So much more to say, but time goes by very fast. Is there anyone out there that has a question? Oh, there we go. Oh, great. Hi. Oh, good. It's on. Oh, you've got a question. You've got a library question. I have. I've got a question. This is Maxime, by the way. Hello, I'm Maxime. So I have a question from Carol. And Carol asks, what inspired you to write your autobiography now? I think it was because I knew I was going to hit 60 and it was double what the doctor said I was going to get. And I kind of felt it was a good time to take stock. And, you know, and I just and I thought the big six so. So I'm going to just speak my truth. And it just felt like the right time, to be honest. So I kind of thought, well, I'm going to go for it. Thank you. There's one in front of you. Yes, behind the pink jumper. No, yeah. Sorry, I can't hear you. Is the microphone coming your way? Hello, and it's just such a pleasure to be here, both of you. I'm like so excited. It's a curiosity question, really. And going back to Norton Crosses. Did you start off like imagining it as a trilogy or like how did it? I know you talked about what made you start it, but was it originally in your head as as a trilogy? Or was it just something you had to get down? OK, I had my story arc. I knew I wanted it to be about Callum and Sefi and their daughter, Callie Rose. And in my naivety, I thought I'm going to get it in one book. And I wrote Norton Crosses and Callie Rose had only just been born. And I thought, OK, it's going to be two books. And I wrote Knife Edge and I got to page 300 and whatever. And she was 18 months and I thought it's going to be three books. And so I wrote Checkmate and then I thought, right, that's it. And then a minor character in Checkmate, Toby Derbridge, started whispering in my ear and he wouldn't leave me alone. I was trying to write something else, but he was kind of like this character saying, tell my story, tell my story. So then I wrote Double Cross and then it became four books. And in the meantime, I'd been asked to write some World Book Day kind of novellas. So I wrote the sort of novellas, I've written three novellas. And then I came Crossfire and then Endgame with Toby and Callie as grown-ups. And then so it covered three generations. So my hubby says it's the longest trilogy on the planet. So it's actually nine books, it's six novels and three novellas. But it originally, it was going, I really seriously thought it was going to be one book. So just shows how wrong a girl can be. And we had another question down here. Do you have a question over there? One at the back as well. There's the guy there. Right. I just wanted to stop by saying thank you Aunty Mallory because you have been a very big part of my childhood and many others. Oh, thank you. But my question is around representation. So I remember the feeling that I felt when I saw the front cover of Pig Heart Boy saw it on the TV, red noughts and crosses. And I try and make sure I pass that on to the younger family members that I have. So I just wanted to know, did you have a moment where you saw red something and thought that I can feel that special feeling of being seen? Slash, did you get to a point, or where was the point where you felt that other people were coming up to you and saying that you had done that for them? Good question. I mean, the moment I felt seen in the world of literature was not until I was 21 and I read The Colour Purple by Alice Walker. Because that was the first novel I read that featured a black character or black characters written by a black author. And before then, I'd read thousands upon thousands upon thousands of books and never seen a person of color in any of them. Except for when I was doing my A-levels, one of the texts I did was Othello, Shakespeare's Othello. So I'd read a play that featured a black character but I had never read any novels. And so it was that moment of reading The Colour Purple and thinking, oh my God, black people, it can exist in literature. And then I read The Bluest Eye by Toni Solomon. Then I worked my ways through all her books. Toni Morrison, you mean? No, Toni Morrison, what did I say? Toni Solomon. Because I'm thinking of Song of Song. And so I read Toni Morrison and then I read Anzacke Shanghese, the four-coloured girls who've considered suicide when the rainbow is enough, and Gloria Naylor. And then I just worked my way. There was a black bookshop in Islington. And after I'd paid my mortgage and the bills, they got all my money. And I just worked my, I bought every book they had. And it was like, and I just worked my way through those. And it's one of these things of, it never occurred to me that I could be a published writer, even though I'd been writing stories and poems from the time I was a child, because it's very hard to be it when you don't see it. And I think, for me, what I got, when I wrote my very first novel, which was my fifth book, but my first novel, was a book called Hacker. And it had two black children on the cover. And the response to that was so amazing. I mean, I had a number of people, librarians and teachers, say, oh, well, this is only for black children, obviously, because it's got a black child on the cover. And I'd say, no, I'm writing for all children. And I thought, this is bizarre. What would you say this about, you know, this book has got a white child on the cover, so it's only for white people. If that was the case, I would not have read a damn thing until I was 21. So I thought, you know, what is this? So, but my thing has always been, I'm writing for all children, my characters happen to be black. And you know, and I just thought, and that was a major part of the reason I started writing because one of the first, I remember going into the Puffin Bookshop in Covent Garden when it was there. And this was when I was still thinking about what kind of thing am I gonna write? Am I gonna write for adults, or am I gonna write crime novels, or romances, or whatever. I still didn't have a clue. And I went into the Puffin Bookshop and I was looking around and I thought, oh, where are the books that have black children on the cover, or black children? And I couldn't find any. And I went to the cashier and I said, do you have any books that feature black children? And she said, no. And I said, well, have you ever had any? No. And I thought, what the, excuse my French. And I thought, seriously, I thought in the interim, because obviously I'd started reading adult books from the time I was 11, so I never revisited children's books until I was back in my 20s. And I kind of thought, you mean nothing has changed? And so I thought, right, I wanna write for children. And that was a spur that made me want to do it because I saw all of our children wherever they're from, deserve to see representation from all walks of life and all heritages and cultures and religions and so on. And I just thought, no, I'm sorry, no, I gotta do something about this. And that's why I wanted to write for children. And I was also told, if you write for children, your books have longer to prove themselves. So if you write for adults and the book doesn't sell, within a year, 18 months, it'll be out of print. Whereas at the time when I started, which was over 30 years ago, children's books would have like three, three years, four years to prove themselves before they went out of print. And so I thought, well, okay, there's a bit more longevity if I write for children. So let me just... So it's a canny choice. Yeah, so, well, you know, I had to have my business hat on as well and think, okay, I wanna make a living at this. And I mean, I remember having my first eight or nine books, probably more, were all for different publishers. Which is why I had a really good insight into the way publishing worked in this country, because I wrote for eight or nine different publishers because none of them would take a second book. They'd all be, I'd say, okay, I've written another book and it'd be, oh, well, let's see how the first one does. And I thought, I can't wait two years for you to make up your mind. So I'd give it to another publisher. And then after about three, four years, I had some of my editors saying, Laurie, you've got too many editors. You've got too many publishers. I think, yeah, because you kids didn't wanna take a second one, and you used to wind me up, but I just thought, so I'd smile politely and say, no, you know, I put the books where people wanted them. But I'm grateful for that, because it actually gave me a really good insight into how publishing, children's publishing work. And I got to meet a lot of editors that way. Let's take another question. One there, great. In the front, down here, three rows back. I wanted to start off by saying thank you so, so much. I'm yet to read just saying, but what I've heard today makes me so excited to read it. I just wanted to ask, your book, Noughts and Crosses, is quite widely taught in schools. I wanted to ask, what are some of the key messages you would like teachers to share with students around that text? You know what, that's a really interesting question, because I never wrote the book to give anybody a message or to give anyone homework, apologies for all those people who had to write homework on my book. I mean, I never set out to write a message. I wanted to present the lives of two characters, Callum and Sefi, and say, this is the backdrop to their world where the Noughts are seen as second-class citizens, the Noughts being white people, and it's about the friendship that turns into a love affair between these two people. And it was inspired by Romeo and Juliet, you know, and it was kind of like... And that was the sole motivation in my head. So, in terms of messages, I think... I hope what it's done is it allows conversation and debate about racism through the prism of the book. And I think for a lot of people, talking about those subjects and using kind of real-life incidents and so forth becomes quite painful, or people are afraid of saying the wrong thing. And I think it's much easier to debate these topics when you're talking about the lives of fictional characters in a book, in the same way that I wrote Boys Don't Cry, and part of the theme of that is not just teenage pregnancy, but also a young black teenage boy who is gay and out and proud, and if you have a problem with that, that's your tough, you know, that's your lookout. So, and again, I had flack for that, and saying, why did you have to feel the need to write about a black boy who's gay and so on? But I thought, you know, if you don't like it, move on. I've written other books, and there are other authors out there, you know, so there you go. But I can't... I guess, so if there's any message, I would say that I hope what it does is it raises these topics for debate and discussion, and you can discuss things that are happening in Callum's life and the racism he's experiencing, and things like when he travels first class on a train and the ticket inspector accuses him of stealing the ticket, which is based on something that happened to me. That was practically verbatim, that conversation, because that's what happened to me the first time I'd travelled, first class on a train, and the ticket inspector accused me of stealing the ticket. Or the conversation Callum has with his history teacher, where he says, how come you never talk about naught scientists and achievers and inventors? And the teacher says, because there aren't any. And that is verbatim, the conversation I had with my history teacher, because I said, how come you never talk about black scientists and achievers and inventors? And she said, because there aren't any, Laurie. And, you know, with a smile, I thought, well, there must be, but you don't know or you don't want to teach them or whatever. So I had to... And it wasn't till I was in my 20s that I found out for myself. And so those... Flipping that on its head in the book, I hope gives people a kind of insight into... Not just the big things when it comes to racism, but the small microaggressions. Things like the plasters. I had such a reaction to the scene with the plasters in Noughts and Crosses, where a nought girl comes in with a dark brown plaster on her head, and Sefi goes, oh, my God, that stands out, doesn't it? And she said, well, they don't make pink plasters, they only make dark brown ones. And, you know, so many... And I put that in there as a throwaway kind of thing. And people were... So much reaction to that. Oh, my God, I hadn't thought about plasters being pink before and whatever. And I thought... And my thing has always been... Plasters are supposed to make cuts more discreet, as well as keep kind of germs and things out of them. But on my skin, a pink plaster really stands out. And if you're not the minority, you don't tend to see that. And so it was things like that, you know, the plasters are... It used to be... It'd make me kind of just sigh when I'd walk through marks and sparks and, excuse me, I'm going to get prosaic here, but I'd be trying to buy a bra or some types of whatever, and it would say nude or flesh-coloured, and there'd be peach, you know, or pink. And I think it ain't my flesh-colour, and I'd have to move on. And then it was things like even just the language, where it would be you'd have cream or peaches or whatever to describe that colour, but it'd be called tobacco or smoke. And when it was dark brown like me, and I'd think, really? That's so attractive. Smoke. Tobacco. I mean, you know, at least it is these things. I just kind of thought, I've got to write about this, man. So that's how... So if there's any message in the book, I hope that, you know, it kind of just... It just kind of... You see it through the eyes of Callum as a nought, as a white person, having those tables turned, and suddenly it's like kind of most of the magazines have crossfaces on them. Or most of the TV programmes are about crosses. Or, you know, the only time you see noughts is kind of like... It's negative, they're portrayed in a negative way, and so on. So I hope that if there's any discussions about that, talk about, now, why is that, and how does that come about? And why are the history books deliberately leaving out noughts in the book and only concentrating on crosses? And so when people say to me, all your dystopian novel noughts and crosses, I think, it's interesting you call it dystopia because when you flip it, are we living in a dystopian world then? You wouldn't say, most people would say we're not living in a dystopian world, but how come my novel and all I've done, all I did in that book was flip it and it's suddenly a dystopian novel, really? Again, you know, kind of have a discussion about that as well. And I think, you know, especially when the TV series came out as well, I got some flak for that, you know, and people said, I'm race-baiting and I obviously hate white people and other bollocks, excuse my French, and I just kind of thought, you know, isn't this, this is fascinating to me because it's like, you know, it's like some people get very defensive when you make them uncomfortable. They're uncomfortable, it makes, it's kind of a euphemism, but some people do not like to be made to feel uncomfortable and if you make them feel uncomfortable, they will come for you. And I just thought, you know what, there is a saying, I can't remember from who, but it does say, art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable, and I absolutely agree with that and I kind of think, if it's making you uncomfortable, think about why. Just have a sit down and think about why. Because I love to be challenged, you know, and if I think a certain thing and someone says, but have you thought X, Y, and Z, and it changes my mind, I think, well, thank you, I've expanded my horizons, but some people, it's just, no, this is how they think and they don't want to expand that, they don't want to admit they're wrong, they don't, and as if, you know, somehow that's a weakness, admitting you're wrong or you've got things wrong or you change, but as Muhammad Ali said, a person who's the same at 50 as they were at 20 has just wasted the last 30 years of their life. You know? You're taking another question. I think there was one down here. Yes. Thank you. I've so enjoyed the conversation tonight, so rich and two writers who I admire hugely. Oh, thank you, thank you. And just following on, actually, from your question to your history teacher, which was so apposite, and I just wondered about your feelings about Black History Month and how quickly we will actually reach a stage where we have the full spectrum of achievements from all people and it will be called history. Yeah, absolutely. And it will not be just a month. Yeah. I'm quite limited. And I wondered about your thoughts on that. I would love to think that it's going to come sooner rather than later. I mean, recently said in an interview I gave that we shouldn't have a Black History Month because it should just be history. But what tends to happen is people of colour get written out of the history books. And so people like Alano Equiado and Mary Seacole and On and On and Ignatius Sancho and so forth just don't get written about unless, you know, and we've had to reclaim a month to kind of make sure that children know about these people and know that the history of the world and the history in general and the history of Britain in particular isn't just about white people and that Black people have been here from Roman times and so on, if not beforehand. And so it's about that education in which some people resist. But we have to keep, I mean, I hope we get to the stage where, as you say, it's just called history and it covers the whole thing about. And I remember, I mean, I gave up history's PDQ because it seemed to be just kings and queens and rich people. And I thought, well, okay, we're the working class people. We're the women's achievements. Why are we not learning about those? And it just seemed to be, you know, kings, as I said, just kings and queens. And I thought, oh, God, and when we had to choose our own levels, I thought, right, out the door, history, bye-bye. You know, because I just felt it was totally irrelevant to me and which is a shame. And I kind of, so I long for the day when we just have a history. Will it happen in my lifetime? I don't know. I mean, I had such high hopes for the 21st century and I feel like I've been let down, let down. Oh, well, you know, it's kind of, I grew up on Star Trek and I was thinking about the 21st century, we'll be exploring the planets and racism will be a thing in a plot path. You managed to get Rosa Parks into Doctor Who. I did, yes, I know. I mean, I'm kind of proud of that. But I just, again, the flack I got for doing that and it was like, and there's people going, oh, why do you have to kind of visit such subjects and kind of fascism and racism? I thought the Daleks are the biggest fascists and racists in the galaxy. You have no problem with Daleks, but suddenly, oh, it's a bit too real there. Doctor Who's gone all woke, I thought, give me a break. Even if you talk about in your book, you even talk about the term walk. Yeah, walk itself has been co-opted, which is really depressing. The opposite of woke is asleep. You want to go through life asleep? There's so many questions. There was one year, there's a guy right there and a girl behind and one there. I think, you know, what we should do is we should hear like four or five questions at once. I'll never remember them all. I will. I'll remember them for you. I'll remember them for you, so if we can have the... OK, so this is a chat, someone's pointed a child over there, so... Guy over there with the cap on. No, no, he's pointing to somebody else. OK, yeah, over there. Yes. But let's do that once more. With a hat on and little glasses, next to the white wall. Yes. No, it was a woman in front of her, but... Oh, OK. OK, we've got... Who's got the mic? I've got a mic here. OK, let's do the mic one first, and then we can move over there. I just wondered, what is your day-to-day writing process? Are you a structured writer, or do you find writing in general quite difficult? What's your day-to-day writing process? My day-to-day writing process, when I'm not doing events and things, is I get up, I have my shower, I clean my teeth, I have a little breakfast, probably porridge, and then I go upstairs to my attic and I write. And I stay there, I might take a half-hour break for lunch, and then I go back and I write. And it's about the discipline. And for me, it's very much kind of... You can't sit there waiting for inspiration to strike, because you'll sit there forever, I just get on with it, and it's kind of like, OK, right, and trust that inspiration will come or kind of just keep going. And so my routine is very boring. I've had people write to me and say, oh, can I come and work for you for a while, because I'd love to kind of intern for you or whatever. I think, what are you going to do? Just sit there and watch me type. That would be so boring. So, you know, that's not going to happen. So that's my routine. And if I have a deadline, then I have my dinner, and I'm back at my computer and I'm writing. And my family bless them, know that when I'm writing, they kind of disturb me at their peril. So they're kind of like, oh, god, you know, mom, would you like a cup of tea or Laura, would you like a cup of tea or something? But basically, I just write. I just get lost in my book. So and I try and make sure I write every day and have one day off and maybe have an evening off if I'm doing a course, because I like to do a course every year, a different course every year. We had another one over here. I have a question over there. Down here. Yes, you. No, hang on, there was one at the back there, though. We said we'd go there next. Well, have you got the mic there? Yeah, I've got the mic. I'll let you talk. Oh, no, I'll just go. Oh, no, no, no, sorry, sorry, you go here. Hi, I love all of your books. I enjoy it very much. I'm asking a question. You know, in the Norton Crosses book, why did you change, like, why did you reverse the roles of racism? Why didn't you just keep it the way it is? Because when I knew I wanted to write about racism and its legacy and how racism maims and racism kills, but before I'd even written a word, when I spoke to my friends about I wanted to write this book, it was like, oh, my God, why do you want to write about that? That's so painful. And oh, my God, why do you want to write about that? Oh, you know, and it was interesting to me because it was like almost like everyone felt they knew what was going to be in the book before I'd written a word. And so I thought, okay, how can I do this so that I play with people's expectations? And so the first few covers didn't have the characters on. They were just split into, like, black or black block and a white block or whatever on the cover. So, and initially, before people, I'd just call them Norton Crosses. And in the first book, I only refer to skin color once, and that's towards the end of the book. Otherwise, they're Norton Crosses or Blankers and Daggers. And I remember my mum phoned me up when she started reading the book, and she said, I'm on page 50 something. She said, is color black or white? And I said, is white, mum? He's a Norton. She said, so, Seth is black? I said, yeah, that's right. She said, no, I'm gonna have to read the whole book again. And she was well vexed. And I thought, yes, because that's exactly what I wanted because I wanted to play with people's assumptions about who those characters were. I mean, now, obviously, the theatre play is going on and it's been on telly. And on the cover, you see Callum's white and Seth is black, but when it first came out, you wouldn't know that until you're well into the book. And that's why I swapped them round because I wanted to play with people's assumptions on that. Okay, over to you. I think there's this woman here. Yes. Need a microphone down? Can we pass the mic down here? That's great. Thank you. I just wanna say I'm really happy to be here. Like, I've been reading your books like my whole life. It's just amazing to see you here. My question is kind of along the same topic, but basically, growing up, it was only black, other black kids that read Malou Blackman. And everyone else was all reading Jacqueline Wilson, but everyone else was reading Jacqueline Wilson. It's only the other black kids that read Malou Blackman. So when we read Noughts and Crosses in year A, and I was 13, I'd already read it, it was like it opened up a whole new world to loads of other people. So I wanted to ask, did you notice there was a different demographic of people, or children that came reading your books when you wrote Noughts and Crosses because of the swap over? Because I noticed that a lot more people were like, oh, okay, it's more digestible, that it's not the black people experiencing the racism, if that makes sense. Does that make sense? It does, yeah. You know what, I think from the time I started writing novels and so on, I used to do an awful lot of school visits, et cetera. So I would say that when I did literary festivals and went into schools and so forth, the majority of people I spoke to were white children. So doing the school visits, et cetera, what I would try and do is make sure I engaged all children with the subject of the story. But again, it depends, because in some schools they would have, and some bookshops, they'd have multicultural, they'd have a thing called multicultural section, and then all black stories, or books by black authors, would be put in that little kind of, on that couple of bookshelves maybe, and that was it. And every time I went into a bookshop and I saw myself in the multicultural section, I'd take my books out and put them under B, you know, and I'd put them face on. So I think it depends again on the way they're presented, and I remember doing a school visit and it was down in Hampshire, I think it was, and the teacher who had invited me, then admitting that they'd had some spare budget and I was available, and said, well, don't expect to sell many books because this is the retired colonel and lady set down here. And I spoke to a year group, I think it was year five or year six, and we had about 180 books to sell, and she was saying, and she just warned me not to expect to sell any. And so, you know, I spoke to them about the books and I told them about Pick Up Boy and Hacker, and all the different stories and how I'd come up with them and asking them questions about various things, and they were asking me questions. And then at the end of it, we sold out, and so, you know, and people were saying, oh, could you sell my book? Could you sell my book? And the pile was going down and down and down, and I'm just watching this teacher going, oh, yeah. I hope you're watching this. And then at the end of it, it was like, you know, 200 books sold, bitch. So, you know, so I just think you're, so you know what, so it was, sometimes you have to just, you have to kind of do what you have to do, and it's, and for me, I learned from Jackie, in fact, because Jackie, every time I spoke to Jackie, she was, I would just come back from a school visit or she was about to do a school visit, and I thought, that's how you do it. I had real problems getting past gatekeepers, like booksellers, some librarians, some teachers who insisted that my books were only for black children because they had black children on the cover, but I thought, if I could get to the children directly and talk to them directly about my stories and the ideas and so on, then I can get around all these gatekeepers and hopefully just engage children and teens with my stories, and that's how I did it. And so for years, for about 15, 20 odd years, I did school visit after school visit, I was up and down the country, and as children's laureate, in the end they said I spoke to almost 30,000 teens because I was all over the place in my two years, and I had my chance to go to Northern Ireland, but for me that was the way to kind of just speak to children directly. Grass roots. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think there's somebody right at the very back there, yes, on your feet. The mic's there. Oh, the mic's there, okay, right. Yes, hello Mallory, I've seen you before in Wood Green. Oh, okay. When you went to the bookshop there. Okay. And you signed my daughters, I think Noughts and Crosses, but sometime back. Anyway, the thing I wanted to ask you was that, you know in your book just saying, you had that interview with Richard in Sky TV and how he flipped the thing around, and I like how you handled that. So were you expecting him to do that, or was it just a complete surprise, how he blindsided you? Oh, it was a complete surprise, I mean that was one of the more unpleasant moments of my life, getting death threats, that's against my family, and people threaten it saying, I know where you live and I'm coming for you and your family and you better watch out and whatever. It was really, really nasty, and for something I hadn't said. And so, and again in fairness, Sky News did apologize, and the head of Sky News even wanted a conversation and I spoke to him and he apologized. And initially their thing was, well if anyone reads the article, they'll know that's not quite what you said. And I said, a lot of people couldn't get past the headline because the headline said, I was, when I was interviewed, and thank God it was filmed so I could prove it, when I was interviewed, I said children's publishing has come a long way, but there's still room for improvement and we need to see more stories, not just from authors of color and about children of color, but also from LGBTQ writers about LGBTQ characters or from the gypsy and traveler communities or people with mental and physical challenges. So I'd love to see more stories that feature those children and it doesn't have to be about a disability or about that, just have some characters who are, maybe have a character who does magic but who's in a wheelchair or you know, and so there's ways of doing it just to be more inclusive in publishing. So that's kind of what I said and the headline was, children's laureate says too many white children in books, in children's books and so of course all the racists just came from me, my Twitter feed just blew up. It was terrible and it was kind of like, you know, the F word and you this and you that and calling me and threats and so on. And I initially, I was so shocked I just went through my timeline reporting them but at the time I didn't realize that all that did was take it off my timeline and I really thought something would happen and what I should have done is taken screenshots of them and taken it to the police and so I know better now but it was appalling but they did apologize. But I said, yeah, your apology and two pounds might get me a cup of coffee, but that's it. The apology was too late. It was, I mean, and they changed the headline. But by that time, other countries, someone sent me the Indian Times and they had UK Children's Laureate. There's too many white children in books and the fact that Sky put it in quotes meant that it looked like it was a direct quote from something I'd said and it wasn't. I never said that. And so it was a horrible, horrible time and it meant then I had to, you know, we had to beef up security in our house and we had to just be really, I had to be careful where I was going and so on and I mean, one time I mean, I say this as a side and it's funny now but it wasn't at the time. I was just going around Sainsbury's doing some shopping and there was this woman following me and I was thinking, I'd stop and she'd stop and I'd carry on and she'd carry on and then I'd stop and she'd stop. So after about two hours of this, I thought, oh, hell no. So she was coming close and I said, excuse me, can I help you? And she said, are you Mallory Blackman? And I said, and I thought, okay. And I said, yes. And she said, oh, I love your books. I'm a teacher. And it was like, okay. But it was, I said, that's really kind of you and they're arranged by my publisher. And I thought, but you don't stalk people, love. I'd stalk people. So it was, you know, but so I just kind of felt it's made me have to be quite careful. I feel I have to be kind of careful. So, you know, but that said. It was, I think we've got time for a while. I'm sorry because we're going to have to bring the, we have to bring the event to end now. So we're just going to have one question from the woman that I pointed to just earlier. Right, right up the back and far right. Can you, can you run around with the mic to her? Okay. Oh, great. You've got to, great, great. Hello. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not quite sure how it works, but I wanted to ask what made you want to tie your autobiography in with the Mackey Books Foundation? They asked me, not gonna lie. They got in touch with me and said, have you thought about writing a memoir? And I thought, well, you know what? I had thought about writing a memoir, but I never got round to it and they were really interested. And I thought, you know what? It feels like the right time to do it and I would love to do it with Mackey Books. And so that's how it came about. So it was, it was a happy accident. It was serendipity. Serendipitous. Yeah. Right. Well, very, very back there. This, this, this. Thank you. Sorry. Yeah. We'll have, we'll have the very, very back. And then the woman with the hat that I pointed to earlier. Hello. Nice to see you. We'll have, we'll have you. And then, and then I'm afraid that's going to be that. Okay, go. Thank you so much for passing me the mic by the way. And I just want to say thank you to you both because you both are really incredible. And yeah, Malorie, your books literally saved my life growing up. Thank you. I remember I used to go to the library all the time and accrue lots of finds. And then my mum would be like, okay girl, we're just going to have to buy you these books because you're going to the library and at this point they know your name and they're like, you know what? They just ended up waving all the finds anyway. And it was really, really a thing. But I just wanted to ask, you know with Sefi and Callum, did you expect that ending? Like, do you, do you think of the endings when you're writing or does it just happen? And is there hope for those characters? Like, was there ever hope for those characters? And in general, when you're writing, like what's, what do you think about the ending? Cause for me, that ending was like, oh my gosh. Like, I can't, I was so upset. Like, I was literally crying all the way. Well, you know, as I said, it was inspired by Romeo and Juliet, so. But that said, I did kind of know the ending and I was kind of like halfway through and I could tell which way it was going. So I thought, okay, I can see, you know, this is gonna have a particular ending. And I must admit, when I was writing the ending, I was in tears writing it and I thought, oh, you numpty, for God's sake. And there was a brief moment when I thought, oh, should I change this? And I thought, no, you can't. The whole point is to say that racism kills and it maims and it kills and so you can't shy away from that. And so I kept that ending. But it's one of those things where I hope, I mean, the thing about it is, I, it's not, perhaps it's not a happily ever after, but I hope it's a hopefully ever after because the hope was in the next generation. And I think it speaks to my, when my parents came over to this country because they were invited, they, they can't, let me just put that in there. Terrible rockets laughing. And their thing was, you know, that they put up with an awful lot in the hope that their children would have a better life and their hope was for their children. And my hope is that my daughter will have it easier than I did and so on. And so the hope is for the next generation. So the hope, that's why the story ends with the birth announcement saying, Callie Rose has been born and, you know, and that, so I hope it has a hopefully ever after ending. And I, because I don't believe in, in writing books for children and teens and saying, well, you know, basically life is poo and then you die. I wouldn't, I would never write a story that that was the message because I don't believe it. I think there's always hope. Even when everything else has gone, you've got to hang on to hope. Hope survival. Yeah. One last question here. Hi, Mallory, hi, Jackie. Thank you so much for this. I've loved both of you for a long time. But what I wanted to ask is you started off talking about the importance of libraries to you. And I just wanted to, do you still use the libraries and do you use it for research or just for feeling that feeling of being amongst all the oldest books? I still use it. Sometimes, I mean, we've got an awful lot of construction going on right where I live. So sometimes I just go to the library to get some peace and quiet and just take my laptop and write there. I love being surrounded by books, but I mean, in our house, we have over 15,000 books. So I don't, for that, I don't need to go to the library because we've got loads of books in the house. But that said, I just, I still like going to the library. I like working there. I still think they are amazing spaces and long may they continue. They're the book festival every day. Yeah, exactly, exactly. APPLAUSE Thank you. Thank you all very, very, very, very much for coming. It's been a fantastic, a fantastic evening. It's been just wonderful being in conversation with you. And thank you, Jackie. And thanks to Jackie as well for being a wonderful chair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. APPLAUSE Yeah, it's been a huge pleasure being in this space and looking out at all your gleaming, excited, intelligent faces and all your fine outfits. How many of you are sartorially pleasing tonight? So many of you are sartorially pleasing tonight. Anyway, it's just been fantastic. You have to, have to, have to get this book and read it. I'm sure you'll find that you go through a range of emotions like you do when you read all of Mallory's work, but in this particular book you'll probably go through even more because you feel for you, you want to defend you, you cheer when you cheer, you cry when you cry, and you, and you, you mind the gaps, you mind the different gaps and the gaps in the book also take you to the gaps in your life. So it resonates and I'm sure that people will find in this book something that will remind them of something that's happened to you. So thank you to the British Library for having us. Thank you to Mallory for being so open and so generous with her time and thank you, all of you, for coming. Yeah, thank you. Good night. Thank you. You got it before we head off. Yeah, yeah. Let's go.