Selina Brown
Selina Brown is an Author, Marketing Consultant and Event Producer. Raised by her British Mother and Jamaican Granny, Selina was an avid reader from a young age. At 16 she became the Youth MP for Nottingham, her love for words gained her two Degrees and a Masters at 21 years old. After living and working in New York, Jamaica, Kenya and Gambia, during the pandemic she wrote the picture book series Nena that became popular in 2020. The same year Selina launched the internationally renowned Black British Book Festival, which aims to celebrate new and emerging Black British authors across all genres of literature.
The Black British Book Festival was created to celebrate new and emerging Black British Authors across all genres, and is in its third year. This year, it is taking place at the Southbank Centre in London on October 27 and 28th. Register here for tickets!
‘This is a new chapter where Black voices are celebrated across the board, and where Black communities are represented in books fairly and equally, in a way that they can celebrate and see themselves in pure joy and happiness.’
You've just announced a stunning line-up for this year's Black British Book Festival (BBBF) at Southbank Centre - congratulations! That must have been a massive team effort - can you tell us about the process and how your lead your team to bring these ideas to life?
I have to start by saying we are an extremely tiny team. Currently there are four of us who work on the festival, and three board members, and we’re all part-time and voluntary. Collectively we put in the work because we believe in our mission and vision. We're very fortunate that we've got a lot of support from amazing sponsors and partners, and of course the authors as well. But it hasn’t been easy. There are hills and valleys that come with organising festivals, but we've got to a point where we can say that we're in a very secure place. We have an amazing line up for the festival and our book tour of over 60 Black British authors and we're very proud of that.
It’s a completely different journey this year as it’s our first festival in London, we’ve quadrupled our audience numbers, and it’s a two-day event. It’s much bigger: we’ve got way more sponsors on board; Leigh-Anne Pinnock presenting the opening event to 2000 people; headline events with Clive Myrie, Gary Younge, Dawn Butler and Kehinde Andrews; panels with Eric Collins and Fats Timbo. In total we’re organising over 50 events between August and October, with 20 at the Southbank Centre. Due to it being on a grander scale, the events are more exciting and interactive and engaging.
I'm fortunate that I work with a group of people who are very open. I encourage each of the people I work with to ask questions and to make mistakes. There have been plenty of mistakes made, and that's cool with me! A lot of what we do is on-the-job learning, because we're going at such a fast pace. We're a festival with no blueprint; we've only been in existence for three years. We’re growing daily, and it’s exciting. So we’re experimenting along the way and trying things out. The book tour is very experimental. We want to tour Black British authors in non-traditional spaces and marginalised communities to directly engage with people that are sometimes overlooked by the publishing industry. So we're going directly to the people, bringing books to them in very unique spaces. We’re bringing them books they may have never had access to and allowing them to have direct conversations with the authors. Hopefully it sparks change in terms of their reading habits, reading for pleasure, reading for joy. In the African Caribbean community, we sometimes treat books as educational tools, and the whole aspect of reading for escapism and just for your mental health and joy is put out the window. So we’re exposing these communities to these books, and on the flipside, the authors get to tour and see people interact with them, so hopefully we’ll get more Black books on bookshelves as well in the long term.
‘We’re bringing [people] books they may have never had access to and allowing them to have direct conversations with the authors.’
One of the aims of BBBF is to demystify the publishing process and make the industry more accessible. What moves are you making to achieve this and what could other industry leaders do to help?
Although we’ve developed a family festival that's aimed at everybody, we do have specific workshops within the festival that are aimed at emerging authors and writers. For example, we have one from Hachette about demystifying the publishing industry, and a panel that’s going to be chaired by Crystal [Mahey-Morgan] from OWN IT, with Waterstones, Nielsen, the Booker Prize and Royal Society of Literature. We want to personify these organisations and make them accessible to everybody. Having a panel where the community can ask them questions directly will create a very open conversation where they can share what their vision is for the future and what they're doing in terms of diversity and inclusion. We’ve got Waterstones running a session on getting books into their shops, and Graham Maw Christie on how to secure an agent. We went to our community directly and asked them what they struggle with, so we can give step-by-step advice on how to overcome a lot of the problems that authors face. We’ve also tried to remove all barriers to entry, so National Express have kindly reduced travel tickets to the event, and 90% of the programme is free, and the events that are paid cost less than £10.
We also have a Black book marketplace for self-published authors taking place, because we understand that as a self-published author it's not always easy to promote your books and gain an audience. They can sell their books, build a database and engage with their audience. And finally we have a bookseller village, where independent Black bookstores sell books on behalf of the publishers. We're demystifying the industry by placing everyone in the same space, so conversations can be started.
We’ve found that most publishers are open to these conversations and to exploring possibilities. We’re launching a mentoring scheme with PanMacmillan off the back of the conversations we've been having with our community. It’s about listening. Within their remits and budgets, it’s about developing programmes that address certain issues, and offering help and support. It doesn't always have to be financial, but listening to the communities is key to making change. We don’t always know what the problems are—it’s only by engaging with writers and institutions and festivals like ours that you can make change that’s needed.
‘As creatives, we can be forced into one lane, but I can be multiple things at the same time and be incredible at them all.’
What prompted you to transition from being an author to founding the BBBF?
I haven’t transitioned; I do both. I’ve always been a writer. It’s in my blood; it’s what I do. It’s what gives me energy and vitality and purpose. It’s my first love. But I haven’t transitioned; I make space for both.
As creatives, we can be forced into one lane, but I can be multiple things at the same time and be incredible at them all. So yes, I am an author, and I also run this amazing organisation, and I'm also a mother as well, which is a hat I wear very proudly. So I have three main hats that I’m wearing at the moment, but who knows what the future holds? There’s that old saying, “jack of all trades, master of none”—I totally disagree with that. You can be a master of all trades. Life’s too short to just stick in one lane. If you're amazing at several different things and you can balance them, then do those things, do them well and be a badass at them. There's nothing stopping you. People make decisions based upon how it looks to other people. No, you make decisions based upon your own life and what drives you, because nobody else is living your life, and you've got to ultimately make you happy. If you're not doing that, then you're not really living.
I self-published my first children’s book during lockdown, and it did very well. And I was so happy, but I did encounter some problems. I thought it was me alone that was experiencing these challenges as a Black woman, but I spoke to other Black authors, and they were also experiencing challenges too, so clearly a change needs to be made here. I thought, what can I do to create that change? So I fused my background in marketing and event management with my love of books, and that’s how the Black British Book Festival was born.
Do you think publishing as an industry is ready for these conversations around pride and joy from Black voices? What would you like to see more of?
What I’ve come to understand is that every publisher is different. They all have their own visions and missions, and they all have their own dynamics and cultures, so it really depends on which publisher you're talking to. Publishing is a business, and they sell books based upon demand. Is there a demand there for Black joy? Yes, there certainly is. Does the publishing industry know there's a demand there for Black joy? I don't know if they do. How do we let them know? By selling more units of Black joy books. Cool, how do we do that? By marketing directly to these communities. Is the marketing being done correctly? I don’t think so. There’s definitely a demand there—a hundred percent, just look at my bookshelf! But do they know about it? Are they researching? Are they conducting studies?
There’s a lot of work that needs to be done in engaging marginalised—I don’t like the word marginalised. These communities are underserved. If you’re not going into these communities, how can you know how much money there is still to be made? If you're only targeting a certain segment of the UK’s society, there’s so much more experience that hasn’t been spoken about and so many more books that haven’t been published. So we’re trying to bridge the gap between these communities that are underserved and the publishing industry, and start that journey towards bringing them together, in order to birth amazing new authors and make a change that hasn’t been seen yet.
‘I don’t like the word marginalised. These communities are underserved.’
What is the one thing you want everyone reading this interview to take away about the future of Black British literature?
That this is just the beginning! I believe that even though we've been here for a long time, this is also a new chapter of the journey. This is a new chapter where Black voices are celebrated across the board, and where Black communities are represented in books fairly and equally, in a way that they can celebrate and see themselves in pure joy and happiness. I believe there’s a movement of people and organisations who are unapologetically committed to change, and that will not stop until shifts have been made. They may not even happen in our generation, but we're committed to ensuring that the movement is started, and that it’s done in a way that is authentic, and driven by love and by purpose. It feeds the literacy landscape of the UK and inspires others outside of this country to understand that Black literature is very much needed and very much wanted and is here to stay.
What are you currently reading?
I’m reading the queen of sci-fi, Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed. Her writing is beyond this realm: her skills in storytelling are like nothing I've ever experienced before. I just get sucked in. It’s literally my guilty habit to read her books. I wish I’d met her in my lifetime. So that’s my little treat at the moment!
My favourite book is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. That book transformed my whole life, in terms of storytelling but also the historical aspect, talking about colonialism in such a profound way. The story is incredible. There’s a lot of life-changing, timeless books out there, but certain books make you feel like you’re in that world and you’re feeling that world, and when you come out of it it’s transformed your own world. It’s very powerful. I recommend it to everybody.
Tell us about a woman in publishing who inspires you.
There’s so many I can think of off the top of my head, but I’m thinking about whose shoulders I stand on. It would have to be Margaret Busby, wouldn't it? To be the first Black woman to have a publishing company within the UK—that within itself is absolutely incredible. And also the founder of HopeRoad Publishing, Rosemarie Hudson. Both are just incredibly talented, and two women upon whose shoulders I stand. I don’t believe I would be here if it wasn't for them. I've had the pleasure of speaking to both of them, and they've been so supportive of my work, of the Black British Book Festival, of our team—and they've given nothing but positive words and affirmations to us. They are both so incredibly inspiring.
