It was a real privilege to chair an event at the Folkestone Book Festival at the weekend with children’s laureate Joseph Coelho, Manjeet Mann whose novel The Crossing won the 2021 Costa Children’s Book Award and poet, illustrator and playwright Nikita Gill.
I asked about their journeys into writing – all three have very different stories. Joseph had tried to get publishers interested in his poetry for many years, doggedly visiting the London Book Fair every year to try and find a publisher. But it wasn’t until 2012 when he struck lucky at the famous fair and met Janetta Otter-Barry, the founder of Otter-Barry books who wanted to publish poetry. He has now published over 20 books including his first YA novel called The Boy Lost in the Maze.
Nikita’s path saw her being published in a national newspaper when she was 12 but many years and 137 rejections later, she couldn’t get publishers interested in her poetry. Refusing to give up, Nikita started posting her poems on social media and during lockdown. Her themes of sexism, misogyny, self love and acceptance resonated with the world and her poems went viral after being shared by Hollywood A listers. Now Nikita is one of the most followed poets on Instagram with 640,000 followers.
Actor Manjeet had written plays before but decided to enter a brand new Penguin initiative called WriteNow which aims to encourage new writers from under-represented backgrounds and the rest is history.
Their journeys really made me think that timing is probably the most important factor for success. Joseph’s happened as poetry was making a resurgence in popularity; Nikita shared her poems on social media where they gained a huge following, especially during lockdown; Manjeet was able to take advantage of a new initiative.
I also asked them about why it’s so important for people to see themselves reflected in stories and on book covers. Nikita recalled how when she saw Manjeet’s first book Run, Rebel in a bookshop she was really excited as it was the first time she’d seen someone like her on the cover of a YA book.
In turn Manjeet, who grew up in Walsall, Staffordshire, said she’d been inspired by fellow Walsallian (if that’s a word) actress and writer Meera Syal and her first semi-autobiographical novel Anita and Me.
Meanwhile, Joseph, as Waterstone’s children’s laureate 2022 to 2024, talked about several projects he’s involved in like Poetry Prompts, Bookmaker Like You and the Library Marathon to increase diversity among authors and illustrators in our bookshelves as well as creating a nation of poets.
An audience member raised a question about snobbery of YA fiction and how it’s not seen as well written as adult fiction. The authors agreed there was a great deal of snobbishness about YA fiction (and ignorance), especially of certain genres like romance (basically anything that’s written by women and is read by girls and women) despite these books making huge profits for publishers.
Finally, I asked the writers about future projects. Manjeet is adapting her books into plays, Joseph is busy promoting his first YA novel and laureating around the country visiting libraries and schools, and Nikita is adapting The Girl and The Goddess, a semi-autobiographical novel in verse, with a major TV production company.
But, perhaps, the most exciting news of all, if you’re fan of both Nikita and a certain much loved BBC TV series, is she’s going to be writing for Dr Who. I can’t wait to watch.
Thanks for reading!