Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S5 Ep17: Bookshelfie: Candice Brathwaite

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

Sunday Times bestselling author Candice Brathwaite reveals how she found her voice, why the UK was long overdue an inclusive book on motherhood and how - if you let it - social media can stifle your best work.  Candice’s debut book I’m Not Your Baby Mother was described by the Observer as ‘an essential exploration of the realities of black motherhood in the UK’. She is also the founder of Make Motherhood Diverse - an online initiative that lets more mothers see themselves reflected online. When she’s not writing, you can find her on TV encouraging women to be bolder in their fashion choices on Lorraine. She is also the author of a book of essays on Black British womanhood Sista Sister and her first young adult novel, Cuts Both Ways is out now.  Madeline’s book choices are:  ** To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee ** Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah ** I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou ** What I Know for Sure by Oprah Winfrey ** Just Sayin’ - Malorie Blackman Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season five of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women. Don’t want to miss the rest of Season Five? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

I can't just say like I was that confident out of the gate. So it took time. Also, I went to performing arts school. Ooh, child. That was that like. That was so terrible. I wasn't expecting to say that. 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, by women around the world. I'm Vic Hope and I'm your host for season five of the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. The podcasts that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction

to share the five books by women that have shaped them. We have a phenomenal lineup of guests for 2022 and I guarantee you'll be taken away plenty of reading recommendations. Our guest today is Sunday Times bestselling author, journalist and TV presenter Candice Barathwaite. Her debut book, I'm Not Your Baby Mother, was described by the observer as an essential exploration of the realities of black motherhood in the UK. She's also the founder of Make Motherhood Diverse, an online initiative that lets more mothers see themselves reflected online.

When she's not writing, you can find her on TV, encouraging women to be bolder in their fashion choices on Lorraine. She's also the author of a book of essays on Black British Womanhood, Sister Sister, and her first young adult novel, cuts both ways, is out now. It's so great to have you here, Candies. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. I know you're a prolific writer, but what about reading? How much time do you get to read? Oh, do you know what? Not half as much also because I write so much, I feel genuine peer pressure.

Like I'm surrounded by people like one of my workmates, Pandora Sykes. I feel like she reads five books a day. And so sometimes, like, having a work convo with her really stretches my brain because I'm just like, I just, I can't conceive how you read so much. And so I do wish I read more. But with that said, I have a very strict rule to not write a book and read books at the same time. Right. Because I find that another author's voice can, like, leak into my work.

So sometimes, on average, my book, books take between six to nine months to write. That's like three quarters of the year of like no reading aside from like magazines or the car or whatever. So yeah, it's really clipped my reading time. It's funny, isn't it? The more that you are putting words on the page, the fewer that you can take in. And I think many people would possibly think it was the opposite. But it doesn't work like that. And you know, and time is a factor too. Yeah, time. And I'm a very, and short sleeper. So I go to bed between 12.30 and 1 a.m. and I get up about 5.36. I've, mate, I've tried. I have really tried. Like, I do the meditation. I have the bath. I do the thing. And so there's that also. It's like my sleep cycle is so short. It then impacts the way I focus. Like, it's a mess all round. But it's a mess all round. But it's,

Yeah, I wish I made more time to read. Those hours, the evening before your, like, midnight to 1 a.m. bedtime and then the morning after you've got up at like half five, what are you doing? Where is your mind? Where is your body? Where is my mind? My mind's always like generally five to six years ahead of whatever I'm doing. And so even the work I'm working on today or books I'm working on today, I'm already in a place where we are casting actors or they're being televised,

which sucks because that goes against my whole live in the now. I really struggle to live in the now. I'm obsessed with trying to make sure things are as stable as possible for my kids. So like it's really hard to just turn my brain off and enjoy the moment, although I will say my latest book is YA fiction, which makes living in the moment and enjoying it a lot easier because teenagers and

young adults, they're not really concerned with, you know, whatever, they're like, we're into this story right now, which is very helpful. And the best YA fiction, you know, is the stories that we are so in the now inside of that I remember, and I know that you've picked Mallory Blackman as one of your bookshelfy books. But that I remember being so swept away in the worlds that she created that I couldn't think of anything else. And that was such a special feeling that you got to have as a young person that as you get into adulthood,

you don't really get to enjoy so much anymore, no matter how engrossing or transporting the novel. But it's very particular of YA fiction to be able to utterly transport you like that and for you to be so present when you're reading it. Yeah. And so to be part of creating those worlds, I think I was talking to someone yesterday where I was like, I, in a very small way, I get to play God.

Yeah. Like, I get to form, help shape young people's opinions, their morals, and why they do certain things and make them question certain things. And that's a really powerful place to be. Because I remember being 13, 14 and paying way more attention to books and media than what my parents were saying. Like, whatever literature was feeding me, that's what was helping, shape my adult vision.

So it's very cool to be a part of that. Well, let's talk about your first bookshelfy book, which I think does take us back to you as a child, as a young person, reading, being engrossed and being essentially mobilized. And it's To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Published in 1960, this book has become a true American classic. Harpoly's cast of unforgettable characters

have passed into literary folklore. as has the unflinching and compassionate way that Lee wrote about the brutality of racism in the deep south. When exactly did you read this book? I think I got into it, maybe when I was 13, and if my memory is correct,

it was part of the school curriculum, which I found really interesting. It wasn't though, because I guess we'll talk about this later, it wasn't my first introduction to that kind of brutality or injustice within literature. Unfortunately, I came up in a time where the only black British writer I can think of is Mallory Blackman. Like, black British lit was very thin on the ground. So I was being fed from my travels, my family's travels to America and my American cousins. So there were

books before that that kicked the door off the innocence of the world. Because I was raised in South London in Brixton, I didn't really, I don't really understand racism. I was was wherever I looked. There were black people everywhere. And so the way that American lit framed racism and injustice just took the shine off the world. And I think, you know, luckily and unluckily for me, I think my dad made me watch roots when I was about nine. So, yeah, like, there was just this continuous activation of the reality. And yeah, harperly, I mean, that story as a whole just really set pace for the kind of storytelling I wanted to do, that's for sure. I knew for sure that I didn't want to be a fantastical writer or fantasy writer

or someone that creates these foreign far-flung places because I was like, there is so much to unpack now in this lifetime and in this space. And I did think even then, and I do wonder even now, if Harper Lee was a black woman, would the story have been received in the same way? Would the story, you know, would it have even have been published? It seems unlikely, right? At that time, it seems exceptionally unlikely

and it wouldn't have been published to the same reception by any means and people wouldn't have interrogated the themes that are being presented to them. Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, I really believe that was a piece of school literature. And it just knocked the soft. off the English class, to be fair.

You know what? Until you said that, I've never thought about how crazy it was that it was on our curriculum. Because it was, for us, I think it was a GCSE book. Yeah, it was. I think I've got the time in a bit wrong, but I'm adamant. This was like something we had to study for for an exam. Yeah. Yeah, well, because I'm similar to you.

I read it earlier than we were reading it at school. My mum had a copy and she was adamant. She was like, you've got to read this. I was like nine. And it was from her O levels. And it's still. Yeah. Oh, love for who.

And it still had all of her annotations written in pencil in the margins. And that actually, I took a lot from that because I saw the way she had studied it. It then gave me some kind of analysis because I was young. I was so young. My moral compass was very simple. I was like, well, that's right, that's wrong. And like you just said, threw everything out of the water because I was like, how can it be that things can be so wrong? When you have that innocence of a child, it's all the more striking because you have,

being conditioned to think, well, we get by where we get by. Yeah. And I couldn't believe it. And I remember that was, it was after reading that, I felt triggered. I guess I was a triggered nine year old. And mobilized, activate. My activism was activated. Yeah. I deeply understand that because I, no matter what school I went to, I know they were all predominantly black at that time, maybe even two white students at best. And so even that we're reading material like that, it's really, it's really hard to have fair conversations because most of the class are on the side of experiencing the victim or the injustice. So yeah, it was just, it was just really, it was really hardcore. But I think a lot of the books I've picked

today are quite hardcore, too. They are, but I tell you what, there's some beautiful novels. In Klinglingberg, of course, we see the story through the eyes of Scout, who is incredibly strong-willed. the child narrator. Do you remember when you read this, do you remember identifying with Scout at all? Absolutely. And in some ways, my Atticus was my dad and my granddad.

So I was raised by my maternal grandfather. My granddad was mugged shortly before or after I was born. And it was really brutal. He was left blind in one eye, which deemed him as unfit for work. So he never returned to work. my nan then went out to full-time work and she paid the mortgage. This was in the 80s and the fact is some, you know, a lot of people now can't get

their head around that in our society. But I came up in a place where a man did the bulk of the housework and bathed me and fed me and took me to school and women went out to get money and my granddad was severely dyslexic and he used to have this terrible, very funny habit of just going to bookshops and like putting five books on credit every week and then bringing them home none of them were age appropriate it was like war and peace and erotic tales and i'm like seven and i'm like thank you's going to and he's like you must understand um how important it is to read and write because that's been a massive barrier for me and then there's this weird duality where he's trying to teach me to read and he doesn't really

understand what he's reading to the point that even now if like he gets a phone bill or whatever I have to narrate what his letters say um but my granddad was also very especially in black households there is this I find it wrong and bad habit of like um kids should be seen and not heard kids should be kids you know adults come around kids scurry up upstairs and like when all the adults will come around and play dominoes and drink sherry or whatever on the weekend he would let me stay downstairs. He was like, no, because forming your opinion and being part of the conversation is really important and you will work out what is for you and what is not for you. I remember him dragging me out of bed at 2 a.m. most nights to watch the O.J. Simpson trial. Right. And I turn up for

school the next day and be yawning my head off and the teachers are like, what were you doing? And I'm like, I was watching the OJ Simpson trial and then like this absolute liar. And it's like, no, I actually was. granddad was like, this is history. And again, it's going to teach you to form your own opinion. Like, listen to the evidence and let me know what you think. I just can't, that is like that SH1T crazy parenting style to like just give a young black girl of that time, all of that room. And then I had a secondary Atticus, which was my actual biological father, who, again was just like reading and writing is so, so important. And I remember having a conversation with him when I was about eight or nine. It was summertime and we went cycling. And we pulled over and

got some strawberry cornettos and he was like, I don't even know how we came to the conversation, but he was like, do you know, Canned? You know, I always wanted to be a writer, but I was a black boy born in the 60s. And not only was that seemingly not an option, no one was going to allow me or pay me to do that. And I knew from a very, very young age this was going to be my job without question. I think I must have been about six. And I remember looking up at him and just feeling and being like, I already know that I'm going to get to open a door that you were never given a key for. And so I had very scout energy. I was always questioning people much to their annoyance. Yeah, to the point that there are some family friends who don't chat to me.

me now because they're like, Candice is so annoying. I'm like, yep, I love to hear that. I'm very, very annoying. Question everything. Literally. I love that your grandfather and your father opened these doors by saying to you read and write and then the world will be at your feet and that you were receptive to that. That you believed actually, yes, it will be.

And also that you recognise that things would be different for you to how they had been for them. Yes. Yeah. I just knew that so deeply. I know it wouldn't be easy still because I'm still a black woman trying to navigate these spaces and I was so blessed to have interviewed Mallory Blackman maybe a couple days ago. And it was really weird trying to hold on to this knowing because the age gap between like myself and Auntie Mallory, she could be my mum. I'm about to be 35. She's like 62. And yet when I was at school reading books, she was the light that was like, okay, you can do this.

Like, there is a Mallory. It's not impossible. But there was only one. And so it still felt like she was this handpicked unicorn. But again, I just had to hold on to the knowing, I guess. Well, we're going to talk a little bit more about anti-malary in just a bit. But right now we're going to move on to your second book, Shealthy Book, which is Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Soldier in a summer.

in a stunning first novel, renowned hip-hop artist, writer and activist Sister Soldier brings the streets of New York to life with a powerful and utterly unforgettable tale of ghetto-born winter, the young, wealthy daughter of a prominent Brooklyn drug-dealing family. Provocative and thoroughly entertaining, this is a daring novel of passion, loss and courage.

How come you picked it? Oh, just hearing you talk about it. about it like that still gives me chills. I couldn't not pick this book so I've been going to New York since I was in nappies. Um, a lot of my family live in New York. And so there was that pool, that draw. And it's a place that I've always promised I'm going to live in one day. So there was that. But what sister soldier was able to do, what winter story was able to do in a time way before social media was go viral. You could not buy this. book anywhere sold out sold out so that's when you want it the most yeah and i think over time i

there's there's two numbers in my head it's i've sold four million copies today or even more than that and this is before social media and i remember like it just snaked its way into our all-girls secondary school got banned and like i hadn't reread it until maybe 2020 and i kept thinking why did they ban this book and i read it in 2020 and i was like jesus how Of course this got banned. This is like, this is top tier adult fiction. Like, I don't know how we got away with this. But it was so juicy and so compelling.

And it was around a time where I think a writer called Omar Tyree was really big. He had like the Fly Girl novels. And having a copy of the coldest winter ever was akin to like having an Averick's jacket or like the Moschino jeans with hearts on. And what you would do is you take your art folder. We all carried like these A2 art folders that were see through. And you'd prop that book up, cover out. So at the bus stop, everyone knew you were that girl. It's like, it's an accessory.

It's like you can't talk to me. Yes, I have a coffee. And then I remember like really smart girls in our form, like went in their copies out and making money. But yeah, I'd never seen a book just, take hold of a generation like that universally. When you read it at secondary school, did you relate? Like, did you connect with winter?

Absolutely. Although she's born in New York, most of us at the time going to secondary schools in South London, we've come from like impoverished background, so to speak. And everyone's got an uncle who's a drug dealer. Everyone's doors being kicked off once or twice. everyone has unfortunately known the process of visiting someone in prison. You know how long those days are going to be. So so much of Winter's story we were able to connect with.

And also feel like Sister Soldier made Winter's story very ghetto but also very fabulous. And that's the point. It was like the door knocker earrings and the fake furs and the Gucci bags. And alongside that, it was alongside the hard moments, it was also really culturally relevant and emulated a style that everyone wanted to be at some point, the baby hairs and the certain haircuts, again, that fly girl world. So it connected with all of us in one way or another, and I think that's why it was such a sensation. There's definitely parallels between the fearlessness of the character, also of Sister Soldier, of this book,

and the way that you approach difficult topics, both in your books, but also on social media. I've been following you for a long time. And it's a straight-talking fearlessness. Yeah. We've talked about where that attitude might have stemmed from. But when you've grown and developed and become a mother, become a public figure,

how have you sort of consolidated that? Was it a decision? I'm going to tackle these. things I'm going to do it or does it just sort of happen naturally because it had to? I think a bit of both. Also, so my dad died when I was about 20 and I've lost, a friend of ours was murdered when we were like 17. So I saw death in my life really early on and I think one of the positives of death, I was just like, wow, I don't have time to waste and I'm just not involved in like saccharin BS conversations. Can we just get to?

to the heart of the matter. Like, I'm very like, this is the reality. Also, I think for so long, especially because I was concerned with my front facing career, I think I played it safe for a really long time, especially because I came into my career in a very predominantly white female space. I was like, well, I have to be like this and I have to be Jamior because even pointing something out, I don't want to be cast as the angry black woman and it's like, m-m-m-rim-m-m-m-m-m-m-. And then something massive happened publicly.

my career and I was just like well that was a waste of time because you guys are going to chat rubbish anyway you're going to do it and oh my gosh it was it's a hard lesson to learn but when you do it's liberating you not are going to chat grud anyway and it was like having not right bandage yeah just ripped off and I was like okay if this is how it's going to go down and I'm going to be made a target or people are going to backstab me I want you to be doing it because you know the real me not because I'm putting a up this facade. And so many of my readers and followers, when they meet me, they're like, we could, we saw distinctly when you became the real you. Everyone can just pinpoint that

moment in time where it's like, this is Candice putting on this glossy professional sheen that she thinks she needs to uphold for her work to be taken seriously. And then the very next day, it was like Candice talking in Patua, because that's what I do in my house. But I'd never done it like publicly because I'm like, is that quote unquote ghetto? Will I be judged for that? So it took time. I can't just say like I was that confident out of the gate. Also, I went to performing art school.

Oh, child. That was that like. That was so terrible. I wasn't expecting you to say that. But you know what we just say? It was terrible. It was terrible. It was not like fame then. I know this sounds crazy.

Because people are like, no regrets, no regrets. No, if there was one thing, I know I wouldn't change it, but if there was one thing I could have foreseen and maybe avoided was going to a performing art school because it felt like you had to live life on 10,000 every single day. It was literally like being in fame, like people doing pirouettes in the lunch hall and all of that jazz. But what I am thankful to that for is it like forced me to recognize my voice

because you just weren't going to be paid attention to if you were coy or played small. And so there was that. And so I think that that maybe was like the start of it. But death pushed it up a bit and then definitely having people trying to publicly sabotage you will just make you go, right, I've got to be all in. And it manifests itself both in strength but also in vulnerability. that you're willing to share. Someone said the other day to me, they were like, confidence isn't just not feeling nerves

when something scares you. It's feeling the nerves, but doing it anyway. It's being vulnerable, but still taking it on. And I feel like that's the type of confidence that I see in you, because you are very open about your vulnerabilities and, you know, you've just told me about your losses and I'm so sorry to hear about them.

But in sharing, there is great strength. Oh, yeah. And I share, number one, I think it's a privilege. I'm in a place in my life and career where I see it as a privilege to share. And also, especially on like spaces like TikTok, my audience is really young. They are 19, they're 20.

And I'm like, how different would life have been if I had like a woman who looked like me who was like late 20s, mid 30s, being like, these are the hurdles, this is how we get through them, the pain and the heartache is not forever, game changer. And so now I take pleasure in being that like, forward slash vulnerable, confident auntie. But it's not like your traditional confidence.

Like I hate public speaking, shake like a leaf. I hate red carpets. Like I'm like, who chow, is there a back door? We ain't doing this. I'm very like, I, I, I don't mind being the face or head or something if I'm in a controlled environment that I'm controlling. And when I feel like I'm not in control, I'm just not interested. And so, so many people who finally meet me because I so rarely leave my house, they're like, oh my gosh, you're

like so shy and coy. And I'm like, yeah, like, I'm not like, whoa, stars, rainbows. I'm, I just think sometimes, especially because of social media, we confuse that vulnerability type of confidence and being like, it's all about me all the time, big, big, big. Like, the all about me, the being front facing for the entirety of my career is like my worst nightmare. 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. Looking for a treat to pair with your favorite book, Bailey's is the perfect accompaniment to enjoy either over ice or over coffee. Well, let's move on now to your third book, which has helped so many people, which is so important to so many people.

It's Maya Angelou's, I know why The Cagebird sings. Because this is a podcast, I'm just going to describe your face. It was like, it was like, Like lights from heaven had just shone down. It was like an ah moment. Your smile went so wide and you looked so gracious and grateful. It's a book that so many of us are grateful for.

It's one of the most widely read and taught books written by an African-American woman. This is the first of seven autobiographical works written by Dr. Maya Angelou, published in 1969. It follows Maya's life from age three up until age 16, where we learn of her unsettled and often traumatic childhood where she endured both rape and racism. Maya wrote this book as a way of dealing with the death of a friend and her own experiences of discrimination and extreme poverty. There are so many books about the African American experience

rather than black British writers, which we've just talked about. So what was it like to struggle to see yourself in the books that you were reading? Oh, it was, it didn't begin as a hard thing because I had such a vivid, wide imagination. But I think as I got a bit older and also I was going to New York so often that maybe that was my top up. I don't know, you know, maybe that was me being like, oh, this isn't so bad because then I spend six weeks with my American cousins and we're doing all the things and did, da, blah, blah. But then some, and I think I found her book on my dad's ex-wife's book show. that woman, she was a lot of things, but she was also a very, very big reader. And I remember kind of like reading it in secret because the themes are really hard hitting

and just being absolutely transformed by. And I hadn't yet, because there was no internet, heard her speak. I hadn't heard that tone that. That voice. I hadn't heard that yet. But I felt it in the passion through the words and the storytelling. And also I think by the time I picked up that book, my childhood was so chaotic and so disjointed and, you know, crime and domestic violence and

moving almost 13 times in nine years that by the time I arrived at her work, it was almost like desperation and like some kind of cosmic kismet where it was like, you have to read this now to know that there are people going through it even more than you who have come out the other side. so I was very, very grateful for that. And I smile so broadly because I think I've recently become very, very obsessed with the idea of having like this older auntie mentor. And actually, they don't always necessarily need to be someone

who actually know. And I feel that in her work. I feel that in the work of O'Prive. You know, it's like maybe we won't be able to meet the women that have genuinely helped us forward. a path ahead but having her work to engage with is just it's top tier like I can't get over it to be fair yeah she really did there's a clip of her I think um I think on desert island did years ago and just hearing that voice it's it's melodic it's the tone like you just said and she

says and that her mother was the one who um put her foot in the door she said like she put her foot in the door up to her hip and pave the way and let every woman come after. She kept that door open for them. On the subject of which, your second book, Sister Sister, It's a compilation of essays about

all the things that you wish someone had talked to you about when you were a young black girl growing up in London, I guess like that sort of anti-figure. Was that book, was that an attempt to redress the balance in some way or to write to your younger self? Definitely to write to my younger self. I will go on record and say that a big career regret of mine

was writing that book when I did. I wish I had let the success of my first book, I'm not your baby mother, marinate a little bit more. Instead of getting caught up in this idea that we must keep the audience engaged, you know, social media is great but it's also just

it's really diluted how long good art takes and it's made us so hungry and so insatiable that now it's like we don't give our favorite writers, actors, whoever, the grace and the time to go away and create work that we can really engage with. Sister Sister is still a great book. I just feel like we could have given the first book more breathing room and then this book,

more breathing room. To even go back to like Sister Soldier, she followed the coldest winter ever up 22 and a half years later. Oh, God, I was so much. Just waiting. I was like, girl, girl, this is she not like, like, sis, is your laptop broken? Do we need to do a go fund me? What's going on?

And then I, and I know I'm not in the minority in this one. And then it really wasn't worth the weight, unfortunately. So many of us feel like that. The follow-up was actually, she could have kept it in the draft, so it's okay. Or just released it way earlier before it was finished same thing. But that gap, how hungry we were as fans, it shows me that that's still a thing, that that's still important, you know. And so I wish I'd held off on sisters sister's for a bit. But writing that book was definitely an.

owed to my younger self and it was definitely me trying to fill that gap because I remember being 1415 and reading books like I don't know vernon godlittle agnes thongs and full frontal snogging and you know teen stuff but also like I'm not the main character and these aren't necessarily my struggles and why are we not talking about chemically straightening our hair and skin bleaching and colourism and you know and and black culture and and and so that was me almost like two fingers up to the stories I had to read as a teen because by then I'd grown out of that whole everything's a fairy tale I can put my head on anyone's body I was hungry for literature that spoke exclusively to me especially since I've come across work like sister soldier where I was like

wow our African-American friends have it good because they are you know they're overflowing with literature that is directly for them and about them and so sister-sister that is me trying to close that gap. You mentioned your Sunday Times bestseller. I'm not your baby mother. It of course evolved from your blogging. You started blogging back in 2015. Yeah.

Specifically to address the narrow middle class white lens through which we culturally speak about motherhood. Was there a particular moment that inspired you to start sharing your experiences? Yes. When I was pregnant with my first child, child, I had to get all of my literature about pregnancy shipped him from the US. Every single book that enraged me something chronic. Number one, I was really broke then and paying the postage on

that made me so mad. But there was nothing. And when I say nothing, I still find this very shocking to say, I'm Not Your Baby Mother was the first book available in the British Library about black British motherhood point blank period like it really broke boundaries we that's that is great in 2020 2020 like there was no 2020 other title where you could be like anything specifically about the black British motherhood experience it did not exist and so even years before that I knew that that in one way or another was going to be work I had to create second to that I had to that I had a very traumatic birth experience with my first born that I couldn't put a name to or date to because that was in 2013. And then in 2018, we get the Embrace report that states at that time,

black women were five times more likely to die in childbirth and here are the stats and the things that go wrong. And I'm just sitting there with my black girlfriends like, oh my God, we've all had this experience in one way or another. And those things like packaged up, I was like, okay, a story like this needs its moment. And I'm not going to lie, I'm Not Your Baby Mother was almost not published. The proposal got bounced around quite a few times and a lot of publishers were not interested. They were like, this is too narrow. We don't think there's a market for this kind of literature.

Can you perhaps broaden your like... Doesn't that go against the entire point? Like, broaden it? Does it have to say black on the cover? Like these were the literal questions. Or there was also like, you're such a good writer, but go and grow your social media to like 100,000 and maybe we'll think about it.

And so I think I was two weeks out from, I was just about to sign a contract to self-publish, to fundraise to self-publish. And I put the word out about that on social media. And a friend I knew through a running club was like, hold on, hold on, hold on. Do not do that. I work for this publishes.

I think this is something we could get behind. Long story short, that's the only reason I'm not your baby mother came to pass. And I knew how, number one, I knew how important that work was. And also, I knew that because it was one of one, the control I could have, because the reality is new authors don't have a lot of control.

And I don't think many people know that. You usually don't have final say over your own front cover. You usually don't have final say over your title. And I was like, I think it was even included in the contract. I was like, you only get this book if we don't change the title. I was like, there can be no modifications to what this book is called. Everything is so important.

And also second to that, I've clocked your staff and there's not one black member of staff. So what we're going to do right now is trust everything I'm saying. Because who I'm trying to market this book to, you don't know them and you don't understand them. And luckily, they just let me have my way. What none of us could predict was that the book came out three, days after George Floyd was murdered. No one could predict that. No one could predict that that newborn of a book was then pulled into these ginormous lists of literature that was said would help you unlearn your racism and teach you about the injustices of the world. I was just sat

there looking at my screen like, what on earth is going on? I didn't expect that. Well, thank you for raising your voice. Thank you as well for the campaigning that you're doing urgently for equal care, for mothers. It sometimes feels like banging your head against a Brit wall because, like, you just described, it's hard, but bit by bit, I hope things are getting better. We'll move now on to your fourth bookshelfy book this week, which is what I know for sure by Oprah Winfrey. Well, I know for sure outlines the moments that shaped Oprah Winfrey into the phenomenally successful person she is today. Oprah shares her experiences and insights on overcoming hardship and how she used that strength to forge a path towards reaching her full potential. How come this book made your list?

It made my list because it was one of the first books outside of the obvious like The Secret that really helped me tap into my woo-woo-ness. And by woo-woo-ness, I mean like, I'm a deeply spiritual dream, intuition-led gal. And I can often sound insane. I think for many years... Join the club, it's fine. Me too. For many years, my husband, my management team, my friends, I'd say something that I wanted to do something or make something happen.

They'd all go, girl, we don't see any entry point for that. and then six months to a year later it would happen and then they'd be like oh my gosh she pulled it off now everyone's just like if she says it it's gonna be my nickname my kids call me wizard they're like if mommy said it we know no one knows how it's gonna happen

we just know it is and like and hearing like Oprah talk about in a very far more intelligent way talk about how she is allowed that inner knowing and that voice and that intuition to guide her life

and shape her career. This is like, you know, a poor girl from Mississippi, again, lots of abuse and trauma, who is the Oprah Winfrey. I just, I listened to a book like that and I was like, none of this is an accident and you deeply know what you're here to do and you always have to take that inner voice to the gym, especially as a woman, especially as a black woman, I think it's easy for people to talk us out of that inner voice. What do you know? There's no data to support that and you're like the first on the scene like you're one of one and and so it's really hard sometimes to be in a boardroom or read an email where you're like this isn't me and I'm going to have to stand up for myself and I feel so small and so alone and hearing Oprah say

how she like plotted her entire life based on that inner knowing I was like yeah this is a this is a bit of me what does Oprah mean to you oh my gosh what does Oprah mean to me I just laugh. I laugh because I'm like, she needs to stay alive long enough for me to like go to her birthday party number one. Go for a hike with her. Do you know what I mean?

Like, stay alive, girl. A long hiker, check. I'd love it. I remember coming home from school, so this is late 80s, early 90s, and I think Oprah Winfrey show was on like Channel 4 back then. And just watching it just because,

aside from her and a black woman that used to read the news, on Channel 3, that was all you were getting in terms of representation. But even without knowing the data and not living in the US, I knew how powerful the Oprah Winfrey show was.

And she like set pace for me thinking that the kind of career I have was even possible. And I know she just feels like an obvious pick. But again, it's that Mallory Blackman-esque kind of guiding light. It's like, okay, they are one of one at this moment. But them doing that lets you know, know that these things are going to be possible.

So she actually has so much to do with why I'm sitting here, to be fair. Just navigating our place in the world and the lane that we are capable of slaying in. She's laid a groundwork and created vocabulary around it that just didn't exist before her. Actually, I'm interested in your approach to raising your children, sort of with that in mind. Do you take a different approach between your little boy, RJ, and your girl, Esme, because you said that you and your husband made the decision to move out of the capital, for example, when you found out your second child would be a boy. How do you see plotting their futures or them plotting their futures?

I'm really, one of the greatest gifts I can give them is, in my opinion, nepotism. I would love for Esme to turn 20 and just be. like, I'm going to do 12 months working here and I can because everyone knows my mom. And because that's how so much of the most privileged have amassed their careers and their wealth and their ideas. And that kind of nepotism in the black community is seriously lacking and seriously important if we even want to have a smidge of an honest conversation about equity, let alone equality. It's like I need some people to just be. hiring my kids just because they might not even be the best at the job, but mummies laid the groundwork.

And, you know, so many people usually get so offended by that until they're given a moment to sit down and realize that there's a certain area of the world in the career space where that's how it operates. So for them, so much of what I do is trying to allow that gift of nepotism into their lives. Also, peace. I had a very unpeaceful childhood, which I've paid for very deep. And so now protecting their peace at all costs is really important to me. I'm obsessed with data. I'm obsessed with crime, actually. And I think I would have been like a forensic scientist or a mortician in a different life.

I still want to own funeral homes, but that's a different discussion. And I was deeply saddened and very obsessed with the data surrounding knife crime in the capital. So when we found out I was having a boy, I was like, there's actually no way that I can conceive trying to raise him in this space. I just couldn't do it. I feel like we could just about do it with Esme, but with a young black boy, I was like, he could be such a target. Like, it just wasn't going to happen. And so their lives are so different. They're so different. And I've noticed how that piece gives them mental space to create and manifest on a level that I, that I wasn't even able to do until my early to mid-20s. The things my...

daughter says or researches I just look at her in awe and I'm like and you get to do that because you're allowed to be a child and I don't think if we'd stayed living in the capital that I would have been able to pull out. We have mentioned her name several times over the course of this episode and it's time to discuss her a little bit more because your fifth and final book, shelfy book, Candice, is Mallory Blackman's Just Saying. Yeah. The long-awaiters autobiography of one of the world's greatest children's writers and an empowering and inspiring and inspiring account of a life in books.

Talk to me about Auntie Mallory. Ah, Auntie Mallory. It's so funny. I had the proof copy of the autobiography because I had to interview her and my daughter bounced into my room and she's like, oh my gosh, we've got this woman's books in our library. And it's that. It's now intergenerational. It's like Stormsy bringing Auntie Mallory into music videos

and helping her work become televised. And I don't know. Like when I met her, there was just this, such this gracious exchange of energy where she knows, I think, deep down what she's done for any black British writer now coming up.

But she, there's not a stroke of ego or arrogance. There's nothing. There's actually nothing. And you know what? I was very clear with my YAA novel that the characters had to look black on the cover. And I didn't receive an ounce of pushback over that. And that's because an Auntie Mallory exists.

And she wrote books in a time where she got tons of pushback for wanting to write YA about racism and having black kids on the cover. And, you know, and so being able to. to sit down with someone who has made my job so much easier. Just made me super emotional and super overwhelmed. And what her autobiography taught me is that, as with most black women of any time, she had hell. She had hell.

And on top of having hell, what her autobiography taught me is to stop being consumed with my age or aging out of success. I think I'm guilty of being smothered, by being bombarded with 30 under 30, and this 20 year old has sold their company for X million, and this 22 year old is on their fifth property, and where, where, where, where, where.

Auntie Mallory didn't start to get published until her mid-30s. Her books have only just begun to start being televised and she's in her 60s. It takes as long as it takes, but taking that time doesn't take away from the impact. And I am very interested in long-term success. which five years ago I wouldn't have said.

I would have been like instant gratification now now now awards. Woo, yeah, me, me. And like stepping outside of my ego has been hardcore. But also I see the payoff when I meet people like her. I'm like, oh, this is a long climb. This isn't, this is anything that happens overnight can be taken away just as quick. And so I'm not interested in that. it makes me feel genuinely quite emotional hearing you talk about Mallory Blackman in this way

because the same as you. She was the voice of a generation and she presented to me on the pages of a book the first time I'd ever, ever, ever seen an interracional couple other than my own family. I didn't know they existed outside of my family and the solace that I found in Nauts and Crosses was life-saving in many ways. I found peace and I found I understood the struggles of my parents that they would have gone for. I understood so much that I wouldn't have understood otherwise. And so I feel very grateful to her. And just like you interviewed her three times in the last two years.

And her graciousness is nothing short of phenomenal and like awe-inspiring. I was just looking at my Twitter. I was just looking at my Twitter the other day. I was like, let's have a little look at this. It's a hellhole. Just turn it off again. But I had a quick look at it. And she'd message me to say, thanks for having me on your show.

And I was like, are you kidding me? Do you know what I mean? Thanks for having me. Like, when I walked in, she done this little bow to me. And I was like, if you don't. Do you know who you are? Number one, get up. Then she was like, I'm so happy you found the time in your schedule to do this.

And I was like, girl, if I was in Australia, I would make Concord run again. Yes. And we will get it done. Like, yes. But it just. And it's just. just proof that all she cares about is the work. Yes.

Like, you know, no gloss, no rainbows, no ego. It's the work. And her writing, I had no idea, though. I'll admit that I had no idea I'd end up a Y8 author. But speaking with her and doing the work that I do now, I'm like, duh, this was the only way it was going to go. Because the power that Y8 authors have in regards to planting seeds and turning heads and changing opinion is, it's so hard.

to change the opinion of a 40 year old. It's a lot easier to get into the mind of a 13, 14 year old and have them think about things in a different moral sense. And so I just think she is dynamite and has impacted my career in ways that she may never know. She always says that the pushback and the abuse because she's had a lot of abuse,

the abuse that she got for inverting the racial structures of society in Norton Crosses. It was never. from children. Ever. They got it. It was always from adults.

And it's a very sad truth, but also I guess there's hope in that because it's the kids who are going to stick around. The kids are the future, you know. And it makes me so, it makes me chuckle because I'm like, so what is it about inverting the process of racism that makes you so uncomfortable? It's because it's awful, isn't it? Do you know what? Why is that a problem for you?

Why is that so hard to even conceive in a fictional sense? because it's not nice, you know? I love the way she cares so deeply about that world that she created. I remember the first time I interviewed she had a T-shirt. It was the 20th anniversary of North Dakota. She had a T-shot with Cephy,

Callum, all of her characters' names are on the front of her. Because she loves them. And you, of course, have gone into developing a world like this, creating a world like this, cut both ways, is a Y-A novel. How did you develop and find your own voice in fiction? Are there any particular lessons that, you've learned and are then trying to impart as well along the way.

Any lessons. I think when it comes to fiction, the best fiction is always rooted in some kind of reality and about trying to plug that gap. And the idea for cuts both ways came very, very quickly off the night I handed in the manuscript of sister sister, cuts both ways was born. I was in the kitchen drinking wine and my husband was like,

so what's next? I was like, shush, because you always put too much pressure on me. Then four hours later, we conceived this world. I have to say, though, with no contract on the table, eight weeks later, I get a call from one of my literary agents, and they're like, I've had a call from such and such, and they'd love if you write, Y, A, you got any ideas? I said, well, would you look at that?

I actually do have an idea. Cuts both ways came together from, like, conception to being published. It was exactly a year. that is so quick in the publishing world. And I was really, I was really trying to give girls that look like me the love story I thought they deserve, create a male black character in Isaac that I thought I would love to have been loved on as a teen. And most importantly, in a fictional sense, create a space where young adults and teens

could perhaps go to their parents and say, you know, I'm being groomed into being in a gang or knife crime is a serious way for me because that's the backbone of the story. It is about knife crime. And I feel like the easiest way to access such troubling realities is through fiction. And the onslaught of love that book receives,

I do have to log out sometimes because I'm just like, I have to step away from this creation because I never want it to inflate my ego because to watch young kids and parents read it, it almost seems like they've been made to go thirsty for like a thousand years. And now there's finally literature that speaks to their current reality. And it's just, yeah, it's blown me away a bit, to be fair.

Candice, my final question to you is just very simply, if you had to choose one book from your list as a favourite, which one would it be and why again, I'm going to describe your face because it's a podcast and you look perplexed to say the least. Oh my God. Okay, I can't believe I'm saying this.

I'm a bit annoyed, but it's the truth. The coldest winter ever by Sister Soldier. Not just because of the story, but also the lessons I learned about marketing. And that's how I entered the publishing world. I was in a marketing role first. And to see how that, book seeded itself in a time before social media.

It's really hard to even get book sales like that today with the power that we have. That is the internet. So more grease to her elbow. But yeah, Sister Soldier, I'm coldest winter ever. Can I just ask, do you still have that book? Is it the same copy? No, it's not the same copy. I don't even think it was my copy.

I think it was a friend's copy. So I bought a new copy in 2020. But crucially, you have it. you can use it as an accessory like it was back in the day. I have it. Put it in the window of the bus. Like I do, I do because one of the great things about being an author now is I never ever pay for books.

I get sent so many copies and so many proofs. And it's the one that never goes to charity or gets donated. Like that's mine forever. Hang on to that. Well, I'm hanging on to every single word. Thank you so much, Candies. I absolutely love chatting to you. And, oh, I just, yeah, I feel ready.

I feel very ready for anything. So thank you. Oh, no. Thank you for having me. This has been great. I'm Vic Hope and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.