Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S4 Ep1: Bookshelfie: Candice Carty-Williams

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

Candice Carty-Williams, bestselling author of Queenie, talks to our new host Zawe Ashton about how groundbreaking fiction can help decolonize British literature.  Candice and her debut novel Queenie made history smashing every glass ceiling going when it was published back in 2019. The novel was conceived when Candice was just twenty-six. It went on to win Blackwell’s Debut Book of the Year 2019, was shortlisted for Book of the Year by Waterstones, Foyles and Goodreads - and longlisted for the Women’s Prize. It also won Book of the Year at the British Book Awards in 2020, making Candice the first black British woman to win the prize in its history. Candice's latest novel Empress and Aniya is out now and can be purchased here.   Candice’s book choices are:  ** Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison ** Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman ** Character Breakdown by Zawe Ashton  ** Citizen by Claudia Rankine ** Keisha the Sket by Jade LB   Zawe Ashton, acclaimed actress, director, playwright and author, will host the new season of the chart-topping Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast, launching with a double episode release: a conversation with Emmy award-winning actress Claire Danes, and a conversation with bestselling novelist Candice Carty-Williams. The new Women’s Prize podcast season continues to celebrate the best books written by women, by interviewing inspirational women about the books that have most influenced their life and career.   Make sure you listen and subscribe now, you definitely don’t want to miss the rest of Season Four.   This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At Harrison Healthcare, we know that lasting health starts with personalized care. We're not just a clinic. We're your partner in prevention, helping you achieve your health and longevity goals. Our expert team combines evidence-based medicine with the compassionate, unhurried care you and your family deserve. Today and for many years to come. When it comes to your health, you shouldn't settle for anything less than exceptional. Visit harrisonhealthcare.ca.ca.com. My guest today is candy. Think about something really serious.

Think about something serious. Okay. My guest today, let's leave the intro. Let's do the intro at the end. I think that's a good idea. With thanks to Bailey's, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. Celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world.

Hello, I'm Zawi Ashton and I'm your brand new presenter for season four of the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. The podcast that speaks to women with lives as inspiring as any good fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. I'm so excited to be your host for season four of the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast bookshelfy. We have a majestic line-up of women this season. I could be being ever so slightly biased, as some of our guests may include some friends and colleagues of mine, but I've also had the chance to reach out to women I've admired from afar. Not only will we get some unique insights into these brilliant women's lives and careers,

we'll also be taking away plenty of women-penned reading recommendations. Let me start by reminding you that the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021, has been awarded to Susanna Clark for Piranesi. You can find more details on our website, wwwwomen's Prize for Fiction.co.uk. My guest today is the best-selling author Candice Carty Williams. Her debut novel, Queenie, entered the Sunday Times bestseller hardback chart at number two, was shortlisted for Book of the Year by Waterstones, foils and good reads,

and was long-listed for the Women's Prize. It made history when it won book of the year at the British Book Awards in 2020, making Candice the first black British woman to win the prize since its inception. It's incredible to me that Candice conceived this novel when she was just 26 and working in the publishing industry. It was here that our paths crossed. She had actually asked to work on my debut book, which is hysterical to think of now because, unbeknown to her, Queenie was. about to explode and my book would be the last one that she worked on in publishing. She's been a huge part of my journey as an author and remains a guiding light today. This is Candice, Catee Williams.

Candice, welcome to bookshelfy. Thank you for having me. Your quoted as saying writing Queenie was an exercise in writing something in which you could recognize yourself, writing something so you could see yourself. Recognising oneself in literature is still quite a privilege, isn't it? Yeah. Massively. And the reason that that came about was that I hadn't at the time of writing. So I saw Writing Queenie when I started on the journey of Writing Queenie when I was 25, 26. I could never remember if I was 25 or 26. Because you were young. Because we were young. Too young and too talented. They're not enough

space in the brain. To remember things like time. And it came about because I was like, I look at the shelves and there's nothing that I'd like to read because nothing is talking to me. And not only that, but I know what's coming because I'm in the position to know what's being acquired. And again, because publishing is so, you know, it's based on taste. So you have lots of editors who are more often than not white middle class who are like, yeah, I can't resonate with that story. And that's fair in some ways. But that means that those books that could nourish people like me, people like you, are just being ignored because there is no one equipped to work on them.

And I was like, okay, so I'm going to maybe add my voices, but mainly to read something that I wanted to read for myself because obviously the 20s are a tough time because you think you're an adult and you're really far from it. And I remember struggling so much. I'd had a really, really horrible, nervous episode. I was really unwell for a couple of years and I was like, what can I read?

What can I look at? What can be a resource for me? Like, why do I feel so lonely in this? And obviously having Written Queenie and the responses to it, there are so many people who have had that experience in their mid-20s. Because the mid-twenties are fucking horrible.

Like, what are you doing? How do you know what to do? But I've had so many people from all different backgrounds. I remember once they got a DM when my DMs were open back in the day on Twitter from a guy who was this, like, I could see from his picture that he was this kind of like American Chad. And I was like, oh God, what's he saying to me now?

What horrible things are you going to say? And he messaged me and he was like, hey, I just wanted you to know that like, obviously I'm not your like desired audience, but I read your book. And I had to leave what? Because I had a nervous breakdown. And I'm just really grateful that I'm obviously not the only person

that's happened to. And I was like, it's not just the Queenies, it's the Chadds too, you know? It's not just the Queenies, it's the Chads as well. It's the Chats. I mean, your rawness, your bravery, your talent is something that I think when trauma is placed through that lens, it can transform you. And there was a point where it felt like there were, you know, documentaries or slightly

more reality-based stories or pieces of art that were centered around trauma of youth, trauma of blackness, trauma of gender. And yet I don't think I'd ever come into contact with something, a piece of art like this that filtered all of that through this incredible lens and was based in the UK. And I'm not surprised that man wrote to you because we need these mirrors and like you're saying, they're not one-sided. You know, it doesn't mean that because you're a woman of Jamaican heritage living in South East London, that the trad American guy is, you know, not going to be able to see into your experience.

And I feel so passionate about turning an artistic lens onto trauma of any kind. Yeah. I think, you know, I'd also got to come to a point in my reading and in my life where I couldn't engage in the slavery narrative anymore because I mean, I also so understood that that was what publishers thought made money. And I was like, oh, we're so much more than that. So I refused to write in that space because trauma comes in so many forms. And it is just the every day, I think, is the thing that was grinding me down as a person. That every day, one of my book selections is, I'm not taking a job over,

but it is Citizen by Claudia Rankine. and that was the first time that I had read or understood what a microaggression was. And I remember feeling, I think it was like little pops of relief as I realized that this thing that I had been living wasn't imagined. You know, when someone like crosses the road, when you're coming towards them, when someone doesn't sit next to you on the bus, when someone colds their bag closer and you're like, I don't, what is, you know, it's those things that I just had never put a name to and I just understood that this is. is just how it is when you're black and a woman. Yeah. But then, yeah, it's the trauma of that existence.

It's so, you know, it's so eroding. Yeah. I didn't know who I was in my early 20s because of that stuff. I had no idea. I was, people were scared of me. Why? You know? Yeah.

Traumatizing. It is traumatizing. And Queenie touches on so many different themes, mental health being one of them. And, you know, I hate the way mental health is kind of just thrown around these days. You know, like, we're talking about mental health. All right. Okay, well, what aspect is in the varied spectrum? But what really struck a chord with me is this bringing to light of therapy sometimes

coming in quite different guises when you're a woman of colour. And whether that be friendships, whether that be, you know, music, you know, music, you know, connection to your heritage, but that actually reading is such an incredible therapeutic space for, I know it's been for me as a woman of colour, because therapy isn't necessarily encouraged within certain communities and diasporic communities and definitely African and West Indian communities and Caribbean communities. And I wonder if you feel like reading or writing has been like a therapy for you. Oh my God, definitely.

Writing more than reading, reading I have a really strange relationship with just because I think when I was younger because I used to read a book a day just to escape, I find it quite hard now. I don't know, there is something in it. There's a reverberation of that

that means that when I'm reading, sometimes I'm like, am I safe? And I'm like, no, no, you are. Fine, you're good. You're an adult now. It's cool. But that still is quite hard for me. But writing for sure, that is the, I guess that's the only space as an adult where I feel, I guess, fully in control.

Not that I'm like a control freak in any way, but it just, I know that what is coming from the, from my head onto the page is just, is authentic. And that's really, really important to me. It feels like a real voice. And I can completely zone out and it makes me feel, I guess we're reading sometimes can make me feel a bit like unsafe. Writing makes me feel very safe in myself, very grounded. I think because it's such an outpouring and also just the, I mean, the solitude that it brings can be, as you'll know, it can have its pros and cons, but just having the space to be like, this is my time to do this and I can't be interrupted.

That's really, it's very rare, I think, especially with social media around, but also the pandemic because it has meant that people have. more access to your time because everyone was at home, right? So it just felt like everyone felt that everyone was contactable. And so you lost actually any space or time that was your own. And also because we were all worried about everyone. So it was like your phone's ringing. I know what's happened rather than, oh, we're going to have a chat.

It's like, oh no, you know, we're always on red alert. So. Got it's so interesting what you've just said about being a ferocious reader as a child. And I have read that about you before. and I think we've probably touched on it because I was a ferocious reader as a child. But it's so interesting to hear you say that in a way it was almost like an escape then. Weirdly rather than a pleasure, you've actually just exploded my brain with that. I am triggered in the best way possible.

It's really made me suddenly think. And as we head towards your first book choice, which is a choice that you've made from the younger Candice, that is so striking that actually returning to reading now evokes a sense of not being 100% safe. And that's something I can really relate to. I also heard you say in an interview that the library was your refuge. And I guess those two things go hand in hand because for me, the library was my refuge. At school when I was being really badly bullied, that was the only place that I could think to go.

because it's actually the place where the bullies didn't want to go. Yeah. Because they didn't want to read books. I remember actually having like a log of foods that you could eat safely in the library without being like caught out by the librarian. So it was like obviously chips were good. So you saw small chips and they're soft foods. Milk shakes were good.

Didn't mind the smell. They didn't. Okay. That's such a good question. You did have to kind of like eat them out of your back. bag and I open and close your bag. It's a bit like pandemic eating with your mask going up and down. That was literally like I had my Shelley's shoes record bag.

I would like literally pull the um the Velcro and that would be the one loud noise that, you know, would call attention to me. Quickly. Just quick one. Just quickly. Just like a mandate. And then you would open and close the flap of your bag so that you could eat these soft. foods. I was a big fan of crisps. You can see there's a fried potato theme happening here,

but crisps you would have to put in your mouth and really saturate with saliva. Yeah, exactly until you could. What's the joy? There's no joy in that. There's no joy in sitting alone in the library, saturating crisps with saliva so that you don't get found for an hour or at least an hour. Does that resonate with you and what you're saying about about books maybe being almost like a coping mechanism rather than this gloriously pleasurable thing as a young person. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I just have such a, I mean, I love, you can see behind me, you can see the shaft behind me. I have so many books. I've got like seven bookshelves in my house, in different rooms. Because I think I love a book as, I mean,

I love a book as an item, but when you actually get into it and you start turning the pages, that's when all the feelings come. But I do remember knowing that, you know, reading and the library were places of safety because either I could leave the world that I was in by reading or the library also, I think for me, was just being left alone. And that was quite a good thing. Your first selection is Angus Songs and Full Frontal Snogging by the brilliant Louise Renison, which was later made into a film with the altered title Angus Songs and Perfect Snogging, a total cop-out. Directed by Gourinda Chada, in 2008, starring a very young Georgia groom and a very, very young Aaron Taylor Johnson.

Heartthrob. Absolutely. Young heartthrob. I love this choice because my choice from this time is definitely in the Adrian Mole, Diary of Adrian Mole age 13 and 3 quarters kind of vibe. It was, you know, this serial, diarized extravaganza, the like of which Angusoms and Full Frontal Snobes. is why did you choose this as your as your first choice there are so many reasons but the main one

is because i can always very vividly remember where i was when that book came to me so i was on a bus facing backwards i remember so many that specifics around it i was in a bus in south of and facing backwards and that book had come with a magazine you know when you used to get magazines with the plastic wrap around it because there was something very good as the present inside it that doesn't happen anymore because it's stuck on so it's usually shit but if you had the plastic wrapping you knew there was something of worth in there. It's a really weighty. Absolutely. And inside was a thin paperback copy of Angus Songs of Forefrontal Snogging and I was like, okay, I like books. Let's cast a magazine aside and I started reading it and just the opening,

I think it's a few lines in where she, Georgia Nicholson, who is the main character, she's saying that she has a spot on her face. So her address is like, ugly house, ugly lane, ugly town. And I remember finding it so fucking funny because I was 13. So I was like,

this is exactly, I understand what this is like. So I just feel, but I love the drama of Georgia. I love that she was funny and I love that she was so, so dramatic. And none of her friends were as dramatic.

So they had their trials and tribulations, but Georgia was funny. And she was such the sense. She made herself main character of everyone else's, everyone else's worlds, which actually, and there were so many similarities with Queenie, because I knew exactly that that's the kind of character

I wanted to write, someone who was like, I don't care what's going on in your life. Put that aside, because I have a spot on my face. And so from that, from then on, I was just like, this is the funniest character ever. And then I was invested. I had, I think actually behind me, all of the,

but I have like three different sets, editions of all of the Georgian Nicholson books because I would go out and buy every single, one, every single time they dropped. Louise Renison did a spin-off, Georgia's cousin, and I bought those too, because I was like, Louise Renison is just absolutely hilarious. And she was, and there was a line,

I think Georgia's best friend, Jazz says to her, which is like, boys don't like funny girls. And I was like, that, I remember being young, I've been like, who gives a fuck? You know? And that was it. I was like, yes, because funny girls are brilliant. Funny girls were the best. I couldn't agree more.

And I'm glad that you've drawn that thread between Queenie and Georgia because I wanted you to be the one to do it rather than me, even though it just made total sense when you pick this book. Yeah. Because there are those brilliant resonances with Queenie and that unabashed. dramatic sense of self, as you're saying, or dramatic sort of sense of the world. And I think I loved, I loved the Sue Townsend, Adrian Mole books for a similar reason, because it was just that unabashed.

I am the centre of my universe, whether things are good or whether things are bad, I'm just going to consume every single drop of air in any kind of room, even if I'm by myself. Of course. It was for me the arrogance of Adrian Mole. Like that's another one of of of mine. I have again behind me all of those books too and I have I think like three different sets of different editions across the years. It was that he was so unselfaware and so relentless with everything and he pursued what I loved about him is that he pursued everything he wanted even if you know Pandora completely out of his leak you didn't care. He would write to the BBC and be like, aren't you publishing my poetry every single month?

And he was like, I don't, he was, he didn't understand why he wasn't, I think he really backed himself, right? And I think that we all, we should all back ourselves. And he, I think, was the first person that I witnessed in literature who was like, I back myself to the hill. Nothing is going to tell me that I'm not the best. I love this. And were you, were you the funny girl at school?

Yeah. I mean, I say that. I don't know if anyone else. would. No, I think they would. I was, I was, I was, I could move around between different friendship groups because people thought I was funny and that was fine. And also I got sent out of class a lot. People think I was funny because of that as well. So I was, I was funny. I can definitely identify with that. Yeah. And with the spot and with feeling like you are number one ugly person on ugly road, ugly town. Exactly. Did that speak to a sense of

skewed self that you think you were experiencing at that time and, me? as teenagers, we all have this skewed sense of self. But did that speak to you on a particular level? Do you know what? Very weirdly and probably quite sadly, I remember feeling a special kinship with Georgia because she would always describe herself as having a big nose.

And there were so few characters in literature that I was reading that was presented to me as a young woman where a character had a big nose. And she was always like, oh, my massive nose. And I was like, I have a big nose. and it's obviously because Georgia is a white woman with a big nose and that was like a thing but I was a black woman with a big nose and I felt an affinity to that.

And that's weird. It's weird, right, to have an affinity because you share a trait with a character and they hate it. But that was the only access point I had to seeing myself in literature back then. It was that and like, I remember Heathcliff, me being like, I get this guy because he was like very brooding. And so this was like six, six form was Wuthering Heights.

He was very brooding and he was always described as dark and having dark hair and dark features. And I was like, again, with more self-awareness, but like that's the only character that I have been presented with, that I have any kinship with.

Obviously, Mallory Brackman like totally like shout out to Mallory because if it wasn't for Malory Brackman, and I wouldn't have seen anywhere near myself back then, you know. But in those prevailing books, I guess, especially in sort of, you know, school texts, it was always trying to find myself. And I never did.

Your second bookshelfy choice, which is Nauts and Crosses by Mallory Blackman, who you just mentioned. There she is. I feel like even just saying her name, we just need, we just need Aaron. around it. We need reference. Mallory.

My God. God. She is. Mallory. Tell me about Nauts and Crosses and your and your first experience with this incredible writer. So my first experience was, I think it was definitely the book Hacker. Mind it. Oh my God. You see here we are again. I do. Here we are. Victoria. Oh God. Which came before Nots and Crosses. But I remember just, I saw it in the school library and then I read it I wanted on for myself. And for some reason, I can't tie the memories together, but I know that for some reason it makes think of my dad. So I feel that I made him buy me a copy of hacker

because I have a vague memory in my head of that happening. But it was when Norton Crosses came out. I was a bit older. And again, that was a school library. But I read it and my mind was blown. And I'm sure yours was as well. And obviously, you know, it's been made into a TV show which happened wow so many years later that was a real fight she had in her hands

that was a real fight and for what um and uh you know just with new editions and you know like they've published like you know anniversary editions and everything and they've been amazing but i just you know when your mind just expands like you unlock like a new sense of consciousness like when you when you read something or learn something and just understanding even back then that like if black people ran the world in the way that white people do now the world would be so shit for white people

and it's like yeah that's how it is for us but I don't know why you don't know so like first of all she smashed it with the concept that's absolutely incredible and then to actually then create a story and characters

and a world and a continuing world with that in mind it's incredible you know because some people have like concept is amazing, not as well executed. But she's amazing, she's amazing. And also just the humanity of those characters and the pain. I remember being devastated at the end of the first book, weren't you?

And so, yeah. So that is, of course, that's got to shout out to Mallory always. It is a shout out to Mallory. And like you're saying, when you feel like a book is tailor made for you and your experience, rather than kind of scrabbling and grabbing at what you can recognize, it is a completely life-changing event. And I remember actually with Hacker reading it, just assuming that this lead character, Victoria, was Caucasian

or assuming that this family was Caucasian. And then when I saw Mallory's picture on the back of the book and she was black, it just completely changed my perspective. As I continued to read, I was like, this is a black family. I'm Victoria, you know, like, yeah, finally. You know, and she's this incredible tech wizard. And then suddenly you can, it feels weird to say you can relax, but you can feel in a different way.

And then Nauts and Crosses comes along and like you're saying, it has all of these bombshells, really, because I feel like it exposed so much to me as a younger person that I kind of didn't have the language for. Yeah. And we're still finding the language for, and I still, I think that it's relevant. And when the BBC adaptation was shown,

again, finding parts of that, that we're like, oh God, we're still living that, you know, 20 years later. What a thing. It is a bit of a thing. And I suppose it's also pertinent to say that this was also a novel that was born. from Mallory's burning anger after the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

And race and class dynamics was suddenly in the press in a way that I had, I don't think I'd ever seen before. I don't know how you feel. And because we were very, very young. Yeah. And so it was this incredible crossover from real life and this awareness that had come with this news of this event. And then like we said earlier on, you know, then reading something that put that

through an artistic lens was almost like a comfort. Yeah. I think there is definitely a reason that the brilliance of that book has been so enduring, you know, I think that, I mean, and that's it because it comes from the heart and it comes from pain. Yeah.

It comes from pain. You know, Stephen Lawrence, still now, it's so painful, you know, we know. It's so painful. And so the fact that she was able to feel that and to channel it into something that just, I mean, you couldn't ignore it. I think that's so incredible, you know.

No one can ignore what she was saying. No one can ignore that, you know, the world wouldn't work if things had been switched around like that. Yeah. The podcast is made in partnership with Bailey's Irish Queen. Bailey's is proudly supporting the women's prize for fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books

into the hands of more people. Bailey's is the perfect adult treat, whether in coffee, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite book. Enjoying the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, share the literary love and be a part of the future of the Women's Prize Trust by supporting our charitable programs for writers and readers.

Donations of all sizes help us to continue empowering women regardless of their age, race, nationality or background to raise their voice. and own their story. Search for, support the women's prize to find out more. Candice, I'm going to bring you on to your third bookshelfy choice, which is a book called Character Breakdown by someone who just by name sounds so awesome. It's someone called Zowie Ashton.

I mean, it's just crazy. Oh, she sounds amazing, so influential, hot. I can't believe you've picked my book and I'm very grateful that you've picked my book because just to talk to you about literature anyway is exciting but to get your perspective on something that I sweated blood to create is very useful I remember for me to do

why have you picked it? Why have I picked it? Okay so the books I picked it all books that I can remember exactly where I was and how I felt when they first came to me. And I say came to me because I obviously needed them in some way. And I think, you know,

I'd been working in this, in this publishing industry for I think maybe six years at this point. I felt very lonely, not just because I was always always the only black member of staff in whatever publishing house I was working in, but also because I find it really hard to connect with a lot of stuff that we were publishing. And

when, you know, I mean, obviously I did seek out character written and I sort of demanded that I worked it and that I read it. But when it came to me, I not being a biracial woman, still understood otherness, obviously, and what that does to you. And I think I was so eager at that point in my life as a sort of 20 something late 20s woman to not feel lonely. I was determined not to feel lonely in who I was, you know, and obviously you write about your experiences growing up, your experiences in the acting industry, also in relationships, and you intercut those with scenes from a fictional script.

And I think that playing with form as well, I think that really struck me too, just because I'm really into anything that breaks the mould of writing. You know, a book is a book. We can all read a bit, we can access a book, but anything that brings us out of the world of that book and takes us into a different world, a new world, a different perspective is always very appealing to me

just because also I have quite, my attention span is so short and that for me I was getting these, I guess it was just like sort of counter vignettes across this amazing thing that I had in my hands and on my screen of different versions of a life that were all, all these versions were, was so testing, you know? I mean, you wrote it.

So maybe you can tell me how you feel about it as a text now. Well, I'm the captain now. I'm just like, okay, the rolls of reverse. It is a mixture of all the things we've already been talking about. Yeah. This coming from very hypersensitive beginnings as a child. and being thrust into the job of acting very much by my own choice. It's really worth saying, you know, there are a lot of, you know, as we're seeing now with

the Britney Spears, you know, conservatorship, that there are a lot of pushy parents out there. More than you probably realize in the entertainment business, there's a lot of unfulfilled older people. But I chose to do this. Like my parents were completely confused by my choices as a six-year-old child. I mean, I was going to this drama class that had an agency attached to it. And so auditions were just kind of things that were part and parcel of that class. Sometimes you would do this hour and a half, nearly two hour class and be, you know, taken away for five minutes with the, you know, people who ran the agency and the people that were auditioning here.

And sometimes you've got the role. And so being a hypersensitive child and going into this world of make-believe. leave at a time when my identity was, I mean, still very fragile and still forming, kind of created this interesting blueprint for my own life, if that makes sense. So I don't know, yeah, I just had this blueprint in terms of the roles that I was taking on that kind of took me through all the ways that my identity was sort of shifting. And it's called character breakdown because at one point, bit like you shared earlier, I had a character breakdown, which was partly to do with my own life and partly to do with acting. And when I started to think about that, I thought, this just feels

like womanhood. Yeah. This just feels like black womanhood, biracial womanhood. This feels like what happens when you are constantly assimilating to a majoritative culture. Yeah. Which you were. essentially are doing as an actor constantly because you're being hired because of things that can help sell someone's show. Yeah. Which you will start experiencing big time when you go into your new role as a screenwriter for this. I literally cannot wait for your serialization of Queenie on Channel 4. Thank you. You will see that in your book you were able to soft sell and in the show you may be asked to hard sell and that sort of feels like the difference between real life and the entertainment industry for me like my life was the book that was unfolding

in a quite a gentle but you know personalized way and then there was this hyper real version of myself that I was having to sell all the time in my work and so yeah character breakdown I think you know, I know that obviously, I mean, in terms of the title, I always, you know, obviously you wrote it, so you have your reading of it. But mine was always the understanding that you are given this character breakdown because you are always given different identities. And as a birish woman, as a black woman, you are always handed an identity that doesn't necessarily, well, more often than not, doesn't belong to you. Yes. But you have to, you have to sort of shape shift your way into that.

Yeah. And that is, it's unnatural and it's uncomfortable. Absolutely. And so that's why character breakdown will always stay with me just because I don't think I realize just how much waking up in the morning and just having to be yourself could be seen and altered by so many different people, you know? Absolutely 100%. And I've heard you say so many times in interviews that you've just been baffled at being cast as this hyper strong person, whether that be within your own family or whether just by society at large and not being allowed to be your true hypersensitive self and just how insane that is. It's honestly so, I mean, also I think you, I mean, you know me within a few minutes of meeting me, you kind of get that.

if it's even minutes, you know, it's kind of like, I'm just here sort of like to laugh or to cry. Like it's literally, you know, 70, 30 split. But it's amazing how people will not see that part of your humanity because it doesn't suit their narrative. And that is a challenge. But I guess I've learned through therapy and other things

that it's not about seeking acceptance or wanting anyone to understand you. It's just being like, I'm just going to be who I am and you take it how you want it. it's not really anything to do with me anymore. Did you feel like you wrote yourself into a level of self-actualization with Queenie? Because I definitely did with character breakdown. Like I stopped acting after I, whilst I was reading the book.

Did you feel that? Did you feel like you'd got to this next level after you'd finished writing? I think I'd managed to get a lot of the things out that I needed to. So a long time ago, a friend of mine who sadly passed, way when I wasn't really well. I'm sorry. Thank you. He said, he suggested that I wrote down what was happening to me, all the panic attacks, all of the dark moments, all of the crying, all of the not being able to leave the house.

He suggested that I wrote that sort of thing down like a diary, but through someone else's lens, he was like, remove yourself from it. But you need to be able to get it out of your system and then change it, twist it, add to it, take away from it, just make it so it's not yours anymore. And it was years later when I was writing Queenie that I had so much stuff in my head after dating, a breakup, trying to find so much to live in London, friendships, sex, all of those things that I was just sort of knocking around. And I was like, and also this isn't at the point where people were talking about these things

as much. Like it still wasn't very cool to not be together. Yeah. And so Queenie was my way of being like all of the things that have and haven't happened to you, all of the people, all of the places, stories that you've heard, things that you have been told that you can't seem to put down because they were quite heavy. You know, things that other people told me, all of those things. I was like, how do I get those out of myself?

And so that is where Queenie came from. And I think actually it's testament to how together you should still have been as a woman at that time, that when Queenie came out, lots of people were very angry with me for creating a character who wasn't perfect. And I found it very funny. I always found it very funny. I was like, go and write your own book then. Nothing to me. But lots of people who were like, why did she do that?

Why did she choose that? Why was that the thing that she did? I didn't really understand it. And it was like, duff. Yeah, okay. But now, though, I think people just generally as a society, especially women, feel able. And I think because, I mean, I know because of social media, feel able to share the things that have happened to them that are less than favorable or the things that are painful or embarrassing or stupid, you know? I think the mistakes. I think making mistakes are something that people are more likely to talk about now. But yeah, in a way that before it was like, you know, you're, you. you were, God, you know, it was like always being a bloody confession if you said anything that wasn't like, I'm living the perfect life, you know. So true. So true. I love that, Candice. I love that insight into sometimes being a person who will hold on to the heaviest piece of luggage,

which is just so ironic. You know, it should just say, oh, that one looks really like, I'll take that one. Just kick it out of the way. Exactly. And I think that that brings us really seamlessly and perfectly to your fourth bookshelfy choice, which just happens to be an absolute hot button for me. It's one of my favourite books of all time. And that is Citizen by Claudia Rankine. It plays with forms in all the ways that you've just kind of described very generously when talking about my book.

And I'm sure this actually played into so much of my confidence in zigzagging in my own form. But this is an unbelievably powerful mix of prose, essays, images, poetry. Talk to me about this choice and give anyone who hasn't read it a little bit of insight into what we're dealing with here. Where do you begin with? You actually can't begin. It was a trick question. I know. Absolutely was.

So, you know, as you said, it's a sort of a collection of poetry, essay, observation. and including picture, you know, so I think as well for me, with this short attention span, it's like, oh my God, like a child, oh my God, an image. And I think it is simultaneously the most eye-opening and pleasant but also painful thing I've ever read in my life. And I remember my old colleague and best friend,

one of my best friends, Lettis, she had been given a copy of it by an editor who was working on it in a different part of the, you know, different part of publishing. And I saw it on her desk and I was like, what, hi, what's that? And she was like, because I always used to take her books. And she was like, can you just leave me with this one? And I was like, no, because it feels like it's for me and not for you, lettuce. And she was like, oh, for fuck sake.

So she let me read it. And I gave it back to her in less than an hour having just taken myself away. and I started reading it and I inhaled isn't even the right word. I just felt like this was the first time I'd understood. And, you know, it's obviously, it's not an easy read. No. And I think that you have to really bury yourself into it.

And it's worth the work. It's really worth it because this was the first time that I had seen articulated all of the things around being a black woman I was feeling. And that is, it's the book that if anyone's like, oh, you know, if you would recommend any book for someone to read it, it would always be that one.

Because if you can learn from it as much as I did, then you are well away, you know? And I think Claudia Rankin is obviously, you know, she's a genius. And I don't use that, I don't use that term lightly. She is a genius. It's actually just struck me. Truly how emotional it is to talk about books.

We've got so many podcasts in the world and so many kind of, I don't know, pieces of art that are much more immediate to talk about. And books don't necessarily feel like that sometimes. And then we hit on this conversation and actually I feel very emotional because sharing why literature chimes with you and affects you is very profound. Yeah. And this to me was almost like a handbook for unresolved. grief. Yes, that's a really fantastic way of putting it. I was exactly like you, just, just absorbing it into my skin. And you've said, and I definitely felt like this for myself, that it was the language that we'd maybe been looking for for a long time. You know,

you've said that this was one of the first times that you realized what a microaggression was and just how eroding it had been over time. It really was. it's a real life but it's also sport it's the it's a workplace it's i think a plane and it's all of these spaces that apart from obviously you know tennis because i'm not that guy but it's all of these places that i've i've been in and seen and again i've used a term reverberation a lot when talking about all of the books that i i like because it was throwing back at me something that i had experience before and it's so rare especially as someone who is not often catered to in literature to have an experience thrown back at you and given to you and actually in citizen it's

not pleasant you know I love a black club story as much as a next person but citizen is not that is presenting a very painful truth and I think that that is not. necessary, but it is also very hard. And I think that, you know, as maybe we've spoken about a lot of the, what we did, you know, with schooling as well, but a lot of the literature that I consume certainly came from America because they have, you know, that their African American literature space is really flourishing, you know, like we just, in England, a lot of the books that we published by black writers are just, we get them from America. Yeah. And so I think that they have, where we don't have a very varied selection of stories.

So you can have your love stories, you can have your fantasy stories, you can have your slave narratives, you can have everything. Whereas here, what we get is still handpicked, a lot of the time by white editors. And a citizen happened to be one of those books that a white editor found enlightening and important enough to publish over here.

Yeah. And so again, it leaves us at a disadvantage, but one that I am so grateful for in a way, if that makes sense. Totally. Totally. And it's partly heartbreaking, isn't it? Because it does have this kind of haunting lightness of touch to it. You know, it's worth saying that some pages are filled with two or three sentences, aren't they? And it's so choppy in its form and like you're saying, punctuated with pictures and beautiful pieces of poetry. But there is this haunting likeness of touch, almost like this inevitability to these small moments of trauma. Yeah. That just felt so different.

And, you know, I learned only very recently through some reading and some therapising that actually trauma is. something that happens, no matter how small, that is out of your control. Like, there was a situation that you didn't create. Yeah. And that was like life changing for me, that piece of information. Because I think sometimes people think trauma is this huge thing that you're carrying from like a formative time in your life. And of course it can be that, but it can also be something very small that happens every day

or every other day or a comment that was made at a time that completely, blindsided you and lodges itself. And that was the power of it, wasn't it? It was just that absolute everyday likeness of touch. That's it. And I think just, I think what she has, has done best is taught us something. And that's what we can, you know, that's what we, we can ask for when we're engaged in a piece of literature. But I don't think I've learned a lesson as, that has affirmed me as much as citizen has. Your fifth bookshelfy selection feels like it's continuing on from this conversation.

It's Keisha the Skeet by Jade L.B. Yes. Keisha the Skeet was a 17-year-old girl. She was black. She was growing up in London and she got into constant sexual shenanigans by herself and or with her best friend and all her best friend's brother who she would have sex with.

And then, and I remember just being like, I mean, I obviously hadn't had sex. I was reading it when I was, you know, 13, 14. I was absolutely, I mean, we all knew what sex was. So it was just like, okay, wow. And I remember just being, the way she writes is. And she was 13 at the, Jade was 13 at the time. Jade was 13 at the time. 17 year old Keisha, yeah.

Exactly. And I actually interviewed her and I was like, I need to know, first of all, had you had, sex and she was like no and I was like yes I could tell because it is like instant or it's like I sat on his lap and then he nutted and it was like oh my god and then I knotted five times and it was like okay yeah this is this is this is this is not what I understand sex to be but the whole thing that I think the thing that was so memorable was that it was written not just you know it was written in slang ebonics there was an at instead of that symbol instead of actually writing a t sexy is

spelt like 17 ways throughout the there's like one like sexy with like eight X's and nine C's like she really just said like I'm going to tell a story how I want to tell a story and that is absolutely incredible and that for me is exactly what storytelling is about it is being like I don't care about classical writing I don't care about the form that you want me to write in I'm going to tell a story and that is exactly what draws me to a story something that is authentic and something that even if I can't connect to it, as I say, I was not running up and down the streets having sex. I was in my school library.

That's what I was doing when I was 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 75. But I could still, I could still connect with a story that just felt so obviously not real. Because as we know, like, you know, Jade was like a teenager herself. Instead of being in the library, she was sitting at her. She said she had a computer that didn't have Microsoft Word. It just had like notes, which was like the free notepad, which was like the free like note pad, which was like the free like note.

You could just write things in there and, you know, there was no formatting. And that's what she wrote the entire thing on. And that to me is like, that is someone who is telling us. Because they're a storyteller, not because they have the best software, not because they have gone to do a degree in English or they've got a master's in creative writing. someone who is like, I need to tell a story, so I'm going to do it in the best way I can. And if I couldn't do it on that, I just write it out by hand. And now she has, you know, she was, she was, she was found in a way.

She was found, but chooses to stay anonymous because she's a professional woman and I guess doesn't want Keisha to be part of, of her life or aligned with her in that way. But it's being, it's, so it's being published for the first time. so the original text, which is referred to as the OG text in the book, with a reworking that she's done and essays from me, from a poet called Caleb Femi, from singer Eni, and from culture writer Enihefioch Ekpudom. And I'm really, really excited to be part of it,

but also just to see it come to life. And I think sometimes, honestly, I just, I laugh at the fact that I was reading this so voraciously when I was a teenager and I've had the chance to actually talk to the person who created this and brought this into my being. And it's so interesting because years after I read it, even up until I think like a year or so before anyone found out who she was, I would be like, who did she know the impact that she had? Like does she like the people who were doing what she was doing like her and I've been Welsh? Like the people who were actually writing like in the dialect that they wanted to write in and it just it's it's not quite it's still not common she was the

first person I think to decolonise literature for me and I feel very I felt very honored to to read it because I think that just broadened up for me it broadened what what a book could be and what a story could be and it's also worth clearing up what a skett is for anyone who doesn't know I can't if I just said it with an actual tea on the end. What a skate is really a hard tea as well. It's our age candies. A skeet is basically one of the most triggering words for me because it was the word that you just didn't want to be called as a teenager.

It basically meant a whore. It comes from the Jamaican skettel, which is like a dirty woman. Yes. which is so horrible. And there were people who were using the full pronunciation as well. You didn't want to be called a skeet, but you really didn't want to be called a skeet. That was a little bit.

It was really then very, very true if someone had to go to the lengths to actually say the entire word. Do you think Keita the Skeet and Anger's songs and Full Frontal Snogging are in dialogue? In any way. I think no, because they're coming from different, I think because they're coming from different places but probably because of age rather than, I think age and lived experience, but as well as background.

Louise Renison was 35 plus. Yeah, older white woman who lived in Brighton, if I remember correctly. And Jade lived in Hackney, if I'm right in thinking that when she was writing this. And I think that, She was, and she was obviously 13. So I remember her telling me that all of, you know,

all of her reference points was that really hardcore, sexy American literature that she was like managing to sneak through. And so I don't think it did, but I do think that they definitely speak to different parts of mine and probably your childhoods. But I think that's what happens when you have to traverse different worlds. So I think that they're not in dialogue with each other, but I think that enjoying them both makes a lot of sense when you still don't really know where you sit, you know?

Correct me of wrong, including you in this, but often I would be called white or black presenting white person because of reading. Like, oh yeah, reading was something at this time in the Keisha the Skeet time when Jade L.B. was writing was a time where reading, reading was literally a white sport at school, at my school, it was. And it was something that you could be, as we've said earlier, bullied for because it was like you weren't aligning yourself with the culture that you're supposed to belong to. And if there's one thing that I can help dispel by doing podcasts like this or the Lit in Color podcast that I've been doing, events I've been doing with Penguin, which is about challenging the curriculum and the lack of representation in the English curriculum. If there's one thing I can help banish for my future children, it's that.

Reading doesn't have a race. Yeah. It doesn't. It's the most imaginative personal exploit that you could probably ever imagine. Yeah. It really doesn't. And so that's why I'm absolutely elated. I don't understand it. I'm elated with the voices coming through, the narratives that are coming through, I just can't wait for there to be more of them and I can't wait for it to be commonplace. And I can't wait for it to not have to be a discussion or for our curriculum to be so unyieldingly white and inaccessible, you know.

And I don't know if we'll see that in our lifetime. I don't think we will. But I'm hopeful that it will come at some point in the future. I really hope that. wrapping up this wonderful glorious chat which has nourished me no end can i ask you which one of your bookshelfies would you choose to keep if you had to choose one oh that's hard you have to kick the rest off a mountain i'm not kicking them i'm not kicking anything anywhere thank you they're books and they'll be treated with love i'm not going to choose yours just because i have access to you if that makes sense i'll always be

Just summarize it for you at over coffee. Hi, sorry, hope you're well. Can you just? So I think it's going to have to be, I'm going to say Nauts and Crosses, you know. I thought I wouldn't, but I am because Mallory Blackman and her writing, I'm choosing the one that I needed the most when it came to me.

So Mallory, shout out to Mallory. Love her so much, honestly. I love that. I love that. Candice, thank you for Queenie. Thank you for your second offering, which I know is palpably close to being finished. Is it? Is it? Just the kind of assumptions I throw our guests on this show. But thank you for Queenie. Thank you for your future work. Thank you so much in advance for what will be a absolute revolution for Channel 4 in the series. realisation of Queenie.

Thanks for being you and thank you for coming on. And I hope to see you in person really soon. Thank you so much for having me. This is absolutely wonderful. I'm Zawi Ashton and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. Please rate and review this podcast. It's the easiest way to help spread the word about the female talent you've heard about today. Thank you so much for listening.

Hope to see you next time. You've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast, brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media.