How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S15, Ep8 How To Fail: Malorie Blackman, the iconic Noughts and Crosses author on rejection, racism and the importance of representation

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

TW: miscarriage Today's guest is one of our most beloved writers: the one and only Malorie Blackman. She joins me to talk about how her setbacks have helped her define who she is - from being evicted and made homeless as a child, to the early years of writing rejection when over 80 publishers turned her down and the devastating loss of her second pregnancy. Throughout it all, Malorie Blackman has survived and thrived. In 2013 she was appointed the Children’s Laureate and now, at the age of 60, her books (including her most famous YA novel series, Noughts & Crosses) are a staple of the GCSE curriculum. In this interview, she talks about the power of resilience. It's a must-listen.--Malorie Blackman's memoir, Just Sayin', is out tomorrow and available to buy here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/441213/just-sayin-by-blackman-malorie/9781529118674--How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted and produced by Elizabeth Day. To contact us, email [e-mail]--Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod Malorie Blackman @malorie_blackman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned

from failure. Mallory Blackman is one of Britain's most beloved writers. Over 30 years, she's written some 70 books which have sold millions of copies and helped shape our culture. Her most famous young adult novel series, Noughts and Crosses, portrays a fictional dystopia in which the situation of black and white people is reversed with startlingly profound results. It was recently adapted for TV and the rapper Stormzy is one of its most ardent fans. So when it came to writing her soon-to-be-released memoir, Just Saying, there was really only one person who could do it justice. It is published by Murky Books, Stormzy's imprint. But despite her success, Blackman did not start out as a writer.

Her parents arrived in Britain from Barbados as part of the Windrush generation, and she grew up enduring spells of poverty and homelessness. Although she wanted to be an English teacher, a school careers advisor told her that Black people don't become teachers, and she went on to study computers instead, eventually becoming a systems programmer. When she turned her hand to writing in her late 20s, Blackman received 82 rejection letters from publishers, but she kept going, convinced she had something to say. Her first work was published when she was 28. So she really did have something to say. And how. By 2013, she was appointed the Children's Laureate. Now at the age of 60, but looking 21, I must say. Her books are a staple of the GCSE curriculum. It's true. Most of the setbacks in my life have

propelled me forward, she writes in her new memoir. There have been so many times when I thought my life was ready, set to run in one direction, only to find myself heading down a completely different path. Mallory Blackman, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you. Thank you, Elizabeth. Oh my goodness, what an intro. That was amazing. Thank you. What an intro, but what a life and what a memoir too. I really enjoyed just saying, thank you so much for writing it. Am I right in thinking that it's your first ever book for adults? Yes, that's right. I mean, I've written some short stories in the past, but it is actually my first book for adults. It's also my first nonfiction venture. And it was one of those things I sort of say at the beginning, I thought, how hard can it be to write about myself? And it was, oh my goodness, sort of having to dive

deep into memories and dredge things up again and so forth was incredibly, incredibly difficult. But I do hope the book is better for it. Oh, it's wonderful. And we appreciate so much your honesty and the fact that you structure it in a really interesting way. So I chose that quote at the end of the introduction quite deliberately because you are so aware, and it's what this podcast is all about, about how instructive failure, hardship, difficulty can be if we allow it. Tell us a bit about the structure and why you chose to do it thematically rather than straightforwardly chronologically. Well, actually, that was with the help of my editor, Lamara, because I did write at the beginning when I sent her the first draft that

I sent her that I didn't really want to tell it chronologically. I didn't want to say, and then this happened, and then that happened, and then this happened kind of thing, and just sort of a linear storytelling and so I knew I wanted to do it in a slightly different way structure it in a slightly different way but when Lamara read it she said there were certain themes that really stood out for her so how about we structured it thematically as opposed to chronologically which I thought was a brilliant idea so I would love to take credit for that, but I can't. That was a suggestion from my editor.

And as soon as she said that, I thought, oh, gosh, I love that. That absolutely works. And so it was basing it around certain themes, you know, like loss and love and perseverance and so on and anger and just giving sort of anecdotes and incidents and accidents that kind of highlight that particular theme. Are you nervous about writing for adults? Because I read somewhere that you find children and young adults much less close-minded than grown-ups. I mean the thing is I love writing for children and adults because I can

write a book about going into the future. I can write a book about going into the future, meeting yourself or a boy with a pig's heart who has an operation. And because of the lack of human donors, he has to have a pig's heart put in him. And I wrote that in the 1990s. Or I can write a book called Noughts and Crosses, where the noughts are white people, and they are seen as the second class citizens and so forth. And young adults and children absolutely go with it. And they want to know more about the story. It's never been young adults and children who say, but that couldn't happen. But you know, plenty of adults have told me that about my books, you know, sort of like for Noughts and Crosses, one adult came to me and said,

your book doesn't work at all. That's not how Britain is. And I thought, well, duh, you know, it's speculative fiction, fiction, emphasis on fiction, you know, with Pig Heart Boy and so forth. I had an adult talk to me about, oh, well, you know, I don't think you should have written that book because no child wants to face their own mortality. And I said, well, what about children who are ill or find themselves in similar circumstances where they might need a transplant? At least now they can see themselves represented in the world of fiction, of the world of literature. And I said, and also what I hope to do is provide their friends and family with strategies for discussing

that because it's so much easier to discuss these issues over a book over you know sort of discuss racism over a work of fiction discuss physical and mental challenges over a work of fiction but really what you're doing is saying this is how I relate to the story this is how the story relates to me can we discuss that please so I do find that writing for young adults and children there's less explaining that needs to be done. Let's put it that way. And there's less justification. And they kind of just go with it in a way that maybe some adults have lost the knack of being able to do or have forgotten what it was like to be a child and just take these things on board where you're kind of trying to find your place in the world and find out what the world's about. And one of the beautiful ways of doing that is to read fiction, because it means that you learn to empathise with other people, you learn to empathise with

their plight and kind of put yourself in their shoes for a while. So it's a wonderful way of doing that. Apart from the fact that you're being entertained by stories it is an absolutely wonderful way of learning empathy and you write so beautifully about how much books meant to you as a child because as I mentioned briefly in the introduction you had some very tough spells as a child enduring real poverty homelessness your father your father leaving. And books, I understand, were your refuge. And yet there was a duality to it, wasn't there? Because you didn't see yourself, young Mallory Blackman, reflected in the books that you were reading. Can you tell us a bit about that? Yeah, I mean, I love reading. I love the world of literature. It was a world I could get lost in. But I was very aware that I was not a part of that world in that I could not see anyone who looked like me in the books that I was reading. and their lives and their concerns and so forth. And the thing is, we all share emotions, you know, the sort of love and joy and hate and jealousy and so forth. But there is a difference. I knew

I was missing from this world that I love. And it really was. I mean, I say in the book, it was like there's a feast going on and I've got my nose pressed against the window watching everybody else enjoy themselves. And I'm kind of on the outside looking in it was one of those things where I just thought okay I'm not in this program or rather I'm not in these books and it was the same with TV programs and films the very few black people represented and if they were represented in sort of old Hollywood films it was as slaves or mammies or the black men were represented as being really ignorant and I mean there was one character I can't remember his real name but his acting name was Step and Fetch It and he was kind of the comedy character and so on and every time I would just cringe when I watched him and it was

kind of a slack-jawed and kind of presented as someone with limited intelligence. But I was reading really recently that he was the first black actor to actually be a millionaire based on the roles he was portraying. But the fact was he was giving a certain portrayal of black men. And so, you know, those were the images. There were no images at all. Or if they were images, they were negative. And so, you know, those were the images. There were no images at all. Or if there were images, they were negative. And so that's why when I finally came across a black character in literature, it was Shakespeare's Othello, as I said in the book, I still had not read a black character in a novel and that didn't happen until I was 21 when I read The Colour Purple by Alice Walker.

So there was a sense of loss there. There was a sense of being invisible. There was a sense of my life as a black person. It almost seemed to me like it felt like it wasn't worthy of representation or being noted or being written about because I had read no books that featured black characters. And that's a hell of a message to give to a child and a young adult. And also what it does, I think, is it also gives a message to other children, white children and so forth, that

again, if they don't see other cultures and religions and ethnicities and sexualities and so forth represented in the books, that they are not worthy of being represented in the literature that is being read. And I think that's a really damaging message. You write brilliantly in your memoir, just saying saying about how you don't want to be a role model and it's a very nuanced point that you make but listening to you I'm like but she's the most amazing role model but explain to us why that carries particular weight because it was so interesting to read well you know it comes with so much baggage that people saying you're a role model because the point is it's like you have to represent all the time it's something like I said in the book where when I was children's laureate

I was very aware that when I took on the role I mean and it was reported as first black children's laureate and so forth but I was very aware that if I messed up it would be first black children's laureate messes up it wouldn't be Mallory Blackman messes up. It wouldn't be just me and the responsibility for me. It would be almost as if the entire black population of the UK had somehow messed up in the same way that, again, it's this thing of if you have a Muslim terrorist, for example, then it's reported in such a way as if it's somehow his or her religion

or their ethnicity that makes them a terrorist. Whereas if you have a white terrorist, it's usually reported as lone wolf or somebody with mental issues. So the white terrorist is responsible for themselves and only themselves in the way that people of colour are not given the same benefit. Goodness me, I mean, I'm nobody's role model. I kind of, you know, I get things wrong. I know I'm not a saint or anything. And so I kind of feel like I want to inspire children to feel that they too could become writers if that's what they want to do. I want to inspire children to read more and read for pleasure and embrace books and embrace what books can do for them.

But to be honest, the role model things, I think, sits heavily on me, to be honest. And I kind of feel I just don't feel like I'm anybody's role model. But if I have inspired along the way other children to read, and other children to feel oh, if she can do it, I can do it when it comes to writing and being authors, then I think, well, you know, at least I've served some purpose. And that's wonderful. Maybe you're an inspiration rather than a role model. But you also make a very interesting point about the phrase people of colour, which I think so many of us use unthinkingly because actually,

and it's the point you make in Noughts and Crosses, what you're doing there is you're making everyone else this homogenous default group and defining yourself as this other mass. And I really want to commend you for writing that and for saying it because it makes the rest of us think. And that's really what I think your work does so brilliantly. It makes us think whilst entertaining us. And I've got no question. I just wanted to say that. Oh, thank you. I mean, my point is, I don't want to tell children and young adults how to think and how to live and how to and so forth. But what I hope is by presenting characters that they can relate to, it just makes them think, oh, okay, what would I do in that situation? Oh, I'd never

really thought of it that way before and so on so I mean some of my books I hope will allow topics to be discussed and used as a springboard for kinds of discussions like Boys Don't Cry I hope that opens up a discussion around teenage parenthood particularly for boys for men for sort of because it's about a teenage dad but also about homosexuality and how that is portrayed in the media and homophobia and how that's reported and how that's represented and so forth. And so I kind of hope that these things will be used as discussion tools, as a springboard for discussion.

But that said, I've written plenty of books which I just wrote to entertain and I hope children will read them and young adults will read them and they'll be kind of, oh, that was a damn good read and move on to the next one from whoever. So for me, it's about both. And some things I hope do spark discussions

and some things I hope people will read and think, well, that was a really good read like that. And then move on. Oh my gosh, they do. And just before we get onto your failures failures you said earlier that this book your memoir is the hardest thing you've ever written because you had to dredge up these painful memories and to revisit past traumas are you nervous about it being published? That's a really good question and I'm not gonna lie yes I am I am nervous about it being published? That's a really good question and I'm not going to lie yes I am I am nervous about it being published I'm nervous about putting so much of myself out there I mean

it's not my entire life by any means but it is some incidents from my life that I know have shaped me in some manner shape or form it's kind of exposing in this sort of way that every book you write does that in some manner shape or form but I's kind of exposing in this sort of way that every book you write does that in some manner, shape or form. But I think writing an autobiography particularly does that. And so, yes, I am. But that said, part of the reason was to show other people and young adults reading it that we all go through things and you're not alone when you go through things. And more importantly, if you keep going, then hopefully you can get through it. And it is this saying of you get knocked down seven times, get up eight.

And that's always been my philosophy to try. And every time I've been knocked down is to kind of get back up. And sometimes it's been a struggle and sometimes it hasn't been instant. But you keep going. My thing has always been onwards and upwards or at least onwards. So, you know, so it is this thing of you just have to keep going. Yeah, it can be onwards and on the same level. That's the important thing is the forward motion. Exactly, exactly. As individuals and as a society, sometimes we take steps back before we can go forward. But that said, that's how life is. I think life is about change.

And you have to accept that and embrace that because otherwise you stagnate. And so my thing has always been just keep moving, just work on the next thing and work on the next thing and hope that with each new thing and each new idea I embrace, each new book I write and so forth, that I get better, not just as a writer, but as a person. That's my aim. That's my hope. And a lot of the time I person. And that's my aim. That's my hope. And a lot of the time I fail, but that's the aim. You know, I think that's the point, isn't it? To kind of aim for these

things. And if you fail, but you know, at least you tried. And my thing has always been, I'd rather try and fail than not try at all. Yes, Mallory. It's almost like I briefed you to say that you are in the right place. So we're going to move on to the next thing now and talk about your failures your first failure is your failure to get your stories published for over two years tell us about that because you started out loving books and wanting to be an English teacher and then what happened well it didn't happen because my career's teacher refused to write a good university reference and said, you know, black people don't become teachers,

why don't you be a secretary instead? I know no disrespect to secretaries, but that's not what I wanted to do. So one way or another, it didn't happen. And from the time I was like 9, 10, that's all I ever thought about was being an English teacher. And so I ended up in computing. And when I got into computing, I'd never even touched a computer before, showing my age. But that said,

I got hooked on them. And I loved it. And so I got into Goldsmiths College to do an English and drama degree. And I deferred entry for a year. But when I started working at a software house, I got hooked on it. So I gave up my place at Goldsmiths and stayed in computing for nine years. And I loved it. But after a few years, I thought, is this what I want to do with the rest of my life? And it wasn't. I wanted to do something kind of more creative and fulfilling. And I wanted to do something that kind of was more me. And I still like computing. I still love my computer games and kind of keeping up with computer technology and so forth. But it's not where I wanted to spend the rest of my life. But I didn't know what I wanted to do.

I always wanted to try the saxophone because I loved Grover Washington's saxophone playing. And I loved the middle of Baker Street, Jerry Rafferty's Baker Street. I love that saxophone part. And so it was sort of music like that that made me think, I want to learn to play the saxophone. So I tried that at a place called the City Lit in London,

which is amazing. And so I did that for a year and that wasn't quite doing it. Then I tried acting classes and as an actress, I was a dead loss. But I loved coming up with the ideas for kind of doing group work and improvisations and at the end of it my tutor said to me you come up with some really good ideas Mallory have you ever thought of writing them down and you know it

was really bizarre because I'd spent my entire life writing stories and poems but it never occurred to me that I could write and get them published because again I had never seen until I was in my early 20s any books written by black authors that featured black protagonists that was the first time the seed was planted that you know maybe I could do this for myself I think reading the cover by Alice Walker was a revelation because it let me know that there were black authors out there and after that I devoured black authors like Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor and you know so many others I just devoured as many books as I could by black authors but it wasn't until my tutor said

have you ever thought of writing them down that I kind of thought, you know what, maybe I could do this as well. Maybe I could write stories and get them published. But again, I didn't know quite what I wanted to write. And I had no clue about the publishing world. I had no clue where to start. So I joined another course at the City Lit called Ways Into Writing, which was just basically tapping into writing and or helping you to become a writer in that in a way to observe things and write about them and so on it was a brilliant class but then I joined. I'm sorry Mallory were these evening courses? Yes they were because I was still working and the wonderful thing about the City Lit is they do courses as well as during the day but they also do evening

classes and they do classes at the weekends so I would sign up for these courses and just go immediately after work and do these and so I did a writing for women workshop I did a science fiction writing class I did a playwriting class I did a you know so I went through all of them and then finally I hit on a writing for children class and I joined that having no clue about writing for children but what prompted me to do that was I was in a children's bookshop and I was looking around and I didn't see a single book that had a black child on the cover and so I went to the cashier and said do you have any books that feature black children and she looked at me and she said well no we don't and thought, this is appalling.

I thought, and I really thought things had changed from the time I was a child and they hadn't. So I thought, right, I need to kind of see if I can do something about this. So I signed up for a writing for children class and absolutely loved it. And as soon as I joined the class, it was as if everything just clicked in my head. And I thought, I knew I wanted to be a writer. But as soon as I joined that class, I thought, I want to write for children. This is it. This is what I definitely want to do. I attended the class. And then I went to the Writing for Children workshop the year after. And in the meantime, I wrote stories, I take them to the class to be critiqued. And when I felt they were as good as I could possibly get them I would send them off to publishers but it was kind of no no thank you for your story but no and sort of 82

rejection letters later and that was for about eight or nine different books a publisher finally said yes but what I was sending out were picture books and early readers and so on. And they were all being rejected. And the first book that was accepted for publication was a collection of short stories for young adults, which were based on kind of nightmares I was having at the time where I'd wake up screaming my head off or shivering and shaking in a cold sweat. And after about the third night of this, I started writing them down. I slept with a notepad and pen by my bed and I would write down the nightmare. And I thought, one day I'm going to do something with these. And then I finally thought, you know what?

Let me see if I can turn these into some short stories, which I did. And then I sent them off. And that was the first book I had accepted for publication. So that was lovely. But it was a hard story. Incredible story. 82 rejections. Yeah, it was it was I mean it's 82 rejections as I said for eight or nine different books lots of different publishers saying no but you know

what some of those rejection letters were encouraging because they would say we're not taking your book but this is why I mean around about the 50th rejection letter then people some editors started telling me why they weren't taking them which I actually took as a good sign because if they were taking the time to say why they weren't taking them then maybe they saw something in the writing it was just a story that was not good enough but I'm not going to lie around about my 70th rejection letter I did begin to think am I wasting my time here is this ever going to happen But it was one of those things I thought, I really want to be a writer. This is what I want to do. I love this. I love creating stories. What gets me, I suppose, is that the fact that it never occurred to me before then that maybe I could be a writer, be an author. It was never presented as a career, even though I love,

all my English teachers knew I loved writing stories I would fill up my books with stories and poems and when I was a teenager I wrote loads of poetry as a way of expressing myself I felt there was no one I could talk to about what I was going through so I would write lots of poems about it and it was my safety valve I'd write really really angry teenage poetry which no one is ever you know has ever seen or will ever see. It was my way of kind of getting to grips with what I was going through and expressing myself. And I think it's one of those things where I'm grateful that it wasn't an instant thing because it taught me tenacity and resilience. And it made me kind of really think about whether or not this was something I wanted to do.

And I think perhaps if it had come more easily than that, I wouldn't have felt I've worked for this. I've paid my dues and worked for this. So I see my two years where I was getting all those rejection letters as my apprenticeship. Yes. Yeah. I've got a couple of questions I really want to ask you about that the first is about your husband Neil because you were together then and I wonder what he thought of this and how supportive he was of your dream he has always been supportive because his thing was I know you and if you put your mind to something you do it so he was always encouraging even when I had that moment of doubt where I thought is this ever going to happen am I wasting my time

and he just said I know you just keep going keep going it will happen if you want it to happen it will happen and he has always always been supportive he's always had my back I just feel I was really really lucky to have him as a support and kind of like when I felt like I was really, really lucky to have him as a support. And kind of like when I felt like I was falling down, he was there to kind of push me back and put me on my feet again. And so he has been so instrumental in me keeping going. But I kind of wondered if I hadn't met him when I had, would I still have been a writer? And I like to think I would have because I would have maybe just given up my job for a year, sold my flat, moved back with my mum and tried writing full time for a year. Neil acted as my kind of safety net because when I was so unhappy in computing and because I wanted to write, I wanted to be

a full time writer. But of course, we had bills to pay, so it wasn't going to happen. But then we made a deal that I would give up my job for a year and he would act as my safety net and I would see if I could make a go of being a full-time author but if after a year I hadn't made sufficient money then I'd have to go back to computing so I was determined I was not going back to computing so I worked all the hours God sent I would kind of write and sleep write and sleep and the occasional meal but that was my life write and sleep and so I kind, but that was my life, right in sleep. And so I kind of feel that, you know, he was always very supportive and for which I will be eternally grateful. He's also white. And I'm going to ask you an impossible counterfactual question, which is,

do you think you would have written Noughts and Crosses in the way that you did, had you not been married to Neil? That's a really interesting question. I've wondered that myself, you know, because it gave me an insight into some of the misconceptions and so forth that he had, and he hasn't got a racist bone in his body, but there were some things like, for example, I remember when we were still kind of just going out and we were in WH Smiths and I zoomed in on the only two magazines they had for black women which were Ebony and Black Essence and I picked one up and I was swicking through it and Neil was next to me and I remember him saying he said why do you need those he said you don't see magazines for white

people like that and I said Neil what do you call these acres and it was like every other magazine in the shop of which there were thousands if they had faces on at all, had white faces on them. But it was fascinating because he hadn't seen them. It's like he could see the difference. He couldn't see the similarities. He couldn't see that every other magazine had white faces on them, just the two that had black faces on them. And it was so fascinating. And I just thought, and it's this idea of the kind of minority in a society will always know more about the majority than vice versa.

And I think Neil's eyes have been opened to a few things. It's like, for example, which I say in the book, one time when I, you know, every time I fly nine times out of 10, I will be pulled over by customs because they want to search through my bags. because they want to search through my bags. And I remember one time being pulled over and the man has unzipped my suitcase to kind of go through my luggage. And then Neil came up behind me because he'd been waiting for his luggage on the carousel. So he was a bit behind me. And then he came and said, is there a problem? And the customs officer said, oh, you two together?

And Neil said, yeah, I'm her husband. And the customs officer immediately zipped my suitcase back up and ushered me on my way. And as I said in the book, I was absolutely livid. It's things that kind of have opened my eyes to things. And I feel that Neil has had his eyes open to certain things going on, you know. And so I kind of feel Noughts and Crosses, I feel, would have been a maybe I would have written the book, but it would have been a different book if I hadn't had the experience of being with Neil and going out with Neil for a while and so on.

So, yeah, it's a very interesting question. And I love what if games and I love kind of, you know, what would have happened if it's a question I kind of ponder on. I kind of think, as I said, I think the end result would have been there would have been a book, but it would have been different. And I wonder if it would have been from both points of view it would have just been a very different book I feel Peyton it's happening we're finally being recognized for being very online it's about damn time I mean it's hard work being this opinionated. And correct. You're such a Leo. All the time. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions. If you're a hater first and

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a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. Join me and world-leading experts every week as we explore the incredible real-life history that inspires the locations, the characters, and the storylines of Assassin's Creed. Listen and follow Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. My final question on this failure before we move on is about those rejections. And I'm guessing it was around the early 1990s when this was happening. It was the late 80s.

Late 80s. You've been a pioneer in reshaping our literary landscape, but was publishing racist then and is publishing racist now? Another interesting question, goodness. In three words. Kidding. Was it racist? I hesitate to say it was. mean obviously as an institution I think there

was a feeling in a number of publishing houses that if books featured white people their books that featured white people were for everybody but if they featured protagonists of any other ethnicity then they were only for people of that ethnicity and I had that not just from a couple of things that editors have said to me but also from booksellers and librarians and so on this view again which is another reason why I wrote for children and young adults because I kind of felt if I could engage them in the story then they would read it in a way that adults might feel that oh this has got a black person on the cover this is not for me I feel that some editors unfortunately and maybe some publishing houses did not believe that there would be a market for books that didn't feature white people or white protagonists I feel that some of them maybe had the view that kind of it would be too niche if they published books that

featured black protagonists because again feeling the market was not big enough if it was only kind of black people who were going to read those which I always felt was nonsense because I thought if you engage people with a story then they'll want to read it was publishing racist I don't think it's racist now certainly not in the same way I think at the end of the day publishing is a business and it's about making money. And it's about convincing some publishing houses and some editors that yes, there is money to be made if they market the books properly and tap into markets that perhaps have been previously neglected. But it took a while to convince some editors and some publishing houses of that. I think we are definitely in a better position now

than we were when I first started. I kind of feel there are definitely more authors of colour and illustrators of colour coming through now and about time. But not just that, I think it's about also seeing more working class protagonists. It's about seeing more books written by people who are neurodivergent or have mental and physical challenges or from travelers and the Romani groups and so forth so I want to see more books across a range of authors across a range of protagonists where it's not necessarily oh this person is in a wheelchair so let's talk about what it's like to be in a wheelchair why can't that person in a wheelchair go off and have magical adventures and do things, but they just happen to be in a wheelchair. So there's room for all kinds of

stories within the world of literature. And I'd like to see more diversity and inclusion in that way. But I think at the beginning, it was a a hard hard slog trying to convince a number of editors and booksellers and librarians and teachers and so forth that just because my books had black protagonists didn't mean they would only be of interest to black children and that was a hard slog and that's why I made a decision very early on that I would go into as many schools as invited me in up and down the country so I could talk directly to the children to try and engage them with the stories rather than to have to battle gatekeepers because I think I kind of got the feeling that if I were to try and just battle gatekeepers I would be knocking my head against a brick wall until

kingdom come kind of thing so I just thought no let me get out there and talk directly to children and young adults and that's what I did a lot of my stories had a slow start and then became more popular due to word of mouth and children passing them around to friends and so forth and that was certainly instrumental in Noughts and Crosses finding any kind of success that it did, because it was word of mouth spread about that book and people were just handing it to their friends and to their parents and so on, for which I will be eternally grateful. But I think that was definitely a strategy I employed just to engage children directly and young adults directly with my work, which seemed to have paid off. We're incredibly grateful for that and for your tenacity. Let's

go back in time because your second failure, which I'm very intrigued by, it's your failure to pass your geography O-level. Why did you choose this one? Well, you know, I did 10 O levels and geography I failed. But the reason I put that is because when I first started at my school, because I went to a grammar school and one of the things we all had to do was Latin. And I loved Latin. I really enjoyed it. I loved learning the language and about, you know, Romans had lived and so forth. And then when we were choosing our O levels to do, I thought, well, if I do Latin, what am I going to use it for?

And so I thought, no, I'm going to be practical. I'll probably find more use for geography than Latin. So I gave up Latin, which I loved, and picked geography and was so bored by it. With no offence to any geographers out there, but, you know, it was not for me. And so I got a D and I failed my geography O level and again it taught me a lesson because I thought I should have gone

for Latin because I would have found a use for it and the ironic thing was when I was choosing my A levels one of my A levels was classical civilization so the Latin would have really served that beautifully but I gave up latin thinking well i'm not going to be a doctor or anything so what's the use what purpose is latin and latino level going to serve because i was trying to be practical and i wanted to kind of try and do exams and so forth that would lead to a better job or could lead to a university degree that would kind of give me some kind of security when it came to a career and so in fact when I was choosing my A-levels I chose classical civilization and instead of English to begin with

I chose chemistry and then again I love chemistry as an O-level but as an A-level I thought I'm not enjoying this and it was so mathsy and so I thought I love reading why on earth did I not pick an English and so I swapped halfway through the first term to English. Thank you, Jesus, that I did. You know, and so I think, and my third A level was sociology. So I think the whole thing about the geography O level taught me to go with my passions

and go with my interests and find a way to make it work afterwards rather than going with something that I feel will be useful and then it turns out it won't because my heart and soul aren't in it anyway. Yeah and tell us a little bit about what was going on for teenage Mallory because you write about it very movingly in the book. Your father left when you were 13 and you were evicted from your home and you were given an hour, weren't you? Just to pack up your life and go. Tell us what that experience was like. Oh, it was hell. No two ways about it. It was

absolute hell. It was that thing of feeling secure, not even thinking about having a roof over your head. And then in the space of a day thinking, oh my God, what's going to happen to us and so on. So it was horrible. And then we lived in a homeless shelter for a while. It was absolute hell. And that's part of the reason why when I was choosing my exams that I wanted to choose practical things because my thing was, I'm going to get a good career and I was all about security and I was all about getting a good career and making money and having my own place and never finding myself in that situation again. Again ironic that then

I chose to do something as speculative as trying to be an author but it was one of those defining moments where it just made me appreciate how easy it is to lose everything you feel you have and lose your security and there's certain behaviors I have now that I can absolutely attribute to what happened then in that I don't like to see an empty fridge our fridge is always kind of you know stocked up and even if I wasn't going to eat I always made sure I paid my rent and then my mortgage when I bought my first flat and it was all about security I mean we were never on the street we lived in a homeless place until the council rehoused us and so on but we were just one step up from that and so it gives me I feel

an insight into what it's like to be absolutely desperate and to have nothing and to not know where your next penny is going to come from. When I was 16 and I had done my O-levels, I was seriously thinking about, do I need to leave school and get a job? Because we had no money. Even though I knew that staying on and getting A-levels and maybe going on to college was a way of getting a better outcome, it was all about money I did not have the money to travel to school because we lived in Lewisham and the school was in East Dulwich and so I it was kind of like well how do I even get there and luckily it's just when they brought in the it was kind of an education maintenance allowance which all the equivalent thereof in the 80s which gave me some money per term, but it allowed me to buy books,

it allowed me to travel to school, because without that, I would have had to get a job. And I was kind of looking at jobs in offices, and I was looking at jobs in department stores, and all the rest of it, because I genuinely could not afford to stay on at school. Without that EMA, it wouldn't have happened. It was interesting that it came along just at the right time. And I thought, you know, someone up there is looking after me. And it did pay for that. And I could help my mum out with some of the bills and so forth. And so I did my A-levels.

But again, it was just one of those times where I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But the sad thing is, I think with the coming energy crisis and people desperate about how they're going to pay the increased gas bills, electricity bills, utility bills, the price of food is skyrocketing. I think there's genuine, genuine panic and desperation in a number of people about how they are going to manage. And again, that's one of the reasons I kind of wanted to write the book. As I said in the book, there were times when what we had in the fridge was streaky bacon and a pint of milk. And we had flour and sugar in the cupboard. And so my mum would make kind of what we called fries, which were kind of these dumplings made with flour, sugar and water and that you fried and

bacon. And that's what we lived off or it was kind of beans. And if we were like beans on toast or whatever for a long time. So I've been been there so those people who have never been through it and then say if you're poor you're not doing it right or if you're poor you know I could buy a packet of pasta and make it last a week and so forth they make me so angry because I just think you obviously have never been so broke that you despair as to where your next penny is going to come from, where your next meal is going to come from. This whole school dinner thing for children in the holidays we were going through last year and the year before

and MPs voting against it. And I thought for some children, that's going to be the only decent meal they get that day if they have a school meal. And yet a number of MPs voted against it. And then there were some pictures of certain private firms who were providing these lunches. And although they were paid a certain amount by the government, what they were providing was so inadequate. And so it's all of these things that I kind of feel been there. I know exactly what that's like.

And more than anything, we need to look after our children and we need to look after our young adults or we're setting ourselves up for so many not just physical ailments in the future but mental health challenges in the future if we don't look after them now and it's one of the topics that's really really close to my heart for obvious reasons but I kind of feel like we're failing our children and the gap between those who have and those who have not gets ever wider in spite of the government talking about closing that social gap, the mobility gap and so forth. But it gets ever wider and there are more people being tipped into poverty.

Then we've got letters through saying, oh, your gas bill is going to go up by this much and your electricity bill is going to go up by this much and your electricity bill is going to go up by that much and whatever part of me is still in that teenage mindset where I'm thinking oh my god how are we going to manage and my husband had to kind of sit me down and just say look he said we don't have money for everything we want but we have money for everything we need and it just made me calm down and I thought we're in the lucky position we are not yet we have the wherewithal to pay these utility bills and a lot of people don't I still kind of feel for all

those people who are going to struggle and are going to find it really tough and a number of people might find themselves losing their homes and then what happens because when we were living in a homeless shelter at least after several months we got a place and then we got finally got sort of another place that was kind of habitable but the social housing in this country is so inadequate I know that you're not going to go into politics but I'm so grateful for voices like yours you're like the big sister of the nation and I know so many people listening to this will feel so seen and heard and valued through your words and so thank you for sharing that experience with us I want to move on to your final failure and we chatted before we

started recording about whether we were going to talk about this because it is such a sensitive subject. And as you know, I've been through my fair share of failure here as well. And the way that you put it and you write about it exquisitely in the book is miscarriage failure. Marui, tell us about your experiences. Well, I've had two miscarriages before I had my daughter. And the second miscarriage in particular was traumatic. I waited until I was 12 weeks pregnant before I told anyone just in case, you know, and I thought after the first trimester, it was safe to tell people and nothing would happen. And so I told everybody and I was ecstatic and

and so on but I was having bladder problems I mean sorry to be prosaic here but you know I was having problems weeing and then I went to the hospital because I'd stopped peeing entirely and they said they're going to have to put a catheter in because it was so uncomfortable And the nurse tried twice and couldn't get the catheter in. And the third time she just rammed it into me. And a judder went through my entire body, the likes of which I've never felt before or since. And that was when I was 14 weeks pregnant. And then I went home still not feeling right. And within 24 hours, I had a miscarriage I'm so sorry it was absolutely down to this nurse jamming this catheter into me and I remember I started to bleed and I walked to the

hospital because we were just around the corner from Lewisham hospital and I'm thinking please god don't let me lose my child please god because I you know and it was one of these things where she was so real to me she was real to me from the moment I knew I was pregnant and I was it was one of those things I was so desperate for a child and I was looking in prams of other women in a way that I had never thought I would when I was in my 20s I was so ambivalent about you know having a child if it happens it happens if it doesn't it doesn't I wasn't bothered but I hit my 30s and suddenly it was like all I could think about I really was desperate for a child so I walked to the hospital

and I said I think I'm having a miscarriage please can I see someone and they took me straight in and the cramps were getting worse and I had my miscarriage and then the nurse said I'm so sorry, we weren't able to save her. And I just screamed and was broken hearted. And you know, they sent for my husband and he immediately left work and came to see me. I was heartbroken, absolutely heartbroken. And the strange thing was, though, that they asked me after hours of crying if I wanted to see her. And I didn't know if I could do it or not. And my husband, you know, Neil was encouraging me to see her and the nurses were encouraging me to see her. But I really felt it would be too painful.

I'm not sure I can do this. And then I finally said, well, OK, then. And Neil, you know, wasn't going to leave my side. And they brought her to me and she was lying on a bed of cotton wool within this sort of small container and she was about the size of my palm it was one of those experiences I'll never forget because I kind of looked down at her and thought even though she was so small she was perfectly formed and there was my daughter Tara and in a way it was I'm really really glad that

I was persuaded to see her because it was a way of kind of making her presence in my life real but it was also a way of saying goodbye and it was one of those experiences again I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy it was one of those things it took, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It was one of those things, it took a long time to get over. It's one of those things that still makes me choke up to talk about it, so sorry. But also, you know what? I'm sorry. You know, what was interesting to me afterwards, when I look back on that, is that so many other women who found out what had happened to me got in touch to say,

yes, they had had miscarriages too and it's one of those things where I suppose it's it's better now than it was then but women still don't talk about it enough so that when you have a miscarriage you don't feel so isolated and alone because so many of my editor friends and my other friends have said yes I've been from miscarriage but I had no clue until I'd gone through it myself and that was instrumental and they would tell me about their experiences and how they had got through it and it helped it all helped and I'm not going to say you know I sailed on afterwards because for I lost a year there would be times when I would be getting on with my day

I'd be trying to write and I would either just burst into tears or I would phone up Neil and say Neil can you come home and he wouldn't even ask me why he would just say my wife needs me and he'd come home blessing and then he would just come home and hold me and I while I just cried or whatever and so even now when I think of Tara I kind of think of you know what might have been and who she might have been and so on and I feel very blessed in that two years later I then had my daughter Lizzie and in fact when I was pregnant with Liz I was induced because they said we don't want anything to go wrong so she was actually five weeks early and had to go in a special care baby unit and so on but they did say it would be very hard for me to get pregnant again. So I just have

the one child, but I'm so grateful for Liz and she's been the light of my life. But I know for some women, they go through the miscarriages and men, you know, desperate to be parents and it just doesn't happen for them. But you know, what it did teach me was just to treasure every moment with my daughter and I try and tell her every day that I love her and I never take her for granted and you know she does light up our lives again it's one of those things where it gives you an insight I feel into loss and into what is happening with other women who go through it and let's not forget the men in this because you know there are a number of men who are desperate to become parents but you know for whatever reason if they're going through miscarriages with their partners they

are experiencing loss and trauma too but I kind of feel very grateful that I had my daughter but god it was an experience that was hell to go through and was so so painful to write about and when I wrote it the only way I could do it was just write it in one go write it down as the thoughts occurred to me so it's kind of like told more as narrative verse rather than prose going through that but I wanted to capture exactly what I was thinking and feeling and going through in that moment but my god it was one of the most painful things I've ever written in my entire life ever. Mallory I cannot thank you enough for sharing that and for being brave enough to write about it when I read that poem about Tara I felt my own experiences of loss utterly reflected

and you're right it's very rare less so, but very rare for women to feel able to talk about miscarriage. And I speak as someone who's gone through three myself and give it its due because as you rightly pointed out, there's an absence there. But for you or for I, as soon as we get pregnant, we imagine our child. we get pregnant we imagine our child and that's why I think it's so beautiful and so important that you have paid tribute to your daughter and that you saw her and I'm so so happy for you that you have the brilliantly named by the way daughter that you have now um but I know and I can imagine that it doesn't ever diminish that loss that you experienced and exactly I just want you to know that we see you and we hear you and we stand with your pain so thank you so much for talking to us about that oh well you know I'm not going to say my pleasure

but I am going to say I feel it's incredibly important to talk about these things and be honest about these things and be honest about these things and isn't that why we all read and we all tell stories and so forth it lets us know we're not alone it lets us know also that whoever we are we are connected we go through the same things we experience the same emotions we are connected in that way it's a way of communicating our feelings with others and I think that's why it's a way of communicating our feelings with others. And I think that's why it's so important to be honest about these things, even though it is incredibly painful. And I hear I mean, I've been through two. You've been through three.

And it is it's one of those things I don't think you ever get over it, but you get through it and you kind of get on with life but it's not something I would say I've got over in the sense that I still think about Tara and my first miscarriage and think about oh what might have been but that said if I could only have one child I genuinely cannot imagine my life without my daughter Liz in it so I think about it and it's kind of unwistful and I think okay you know I still wonder about what my children might have been if I hadn't had miscarriages but it's one of those life experiences that some people have to go through but I hope in telling my story as I said it helps others who are going through the same or similar and it also it helps others feel they are not alone if they are going through

a similar thing but I do feel like you said it's one of those things where people don't tend to broach the subject unless they know someone else has gone through it because part of it is because it's painful and you want someone who feels able to relate and I think if you else has gone through it because part of it is because it's painful and you want someone who feels able to relate. And I think if you haven't gone through it, it might be hard to feel just what a sense of loss and pain comes with losing a child in that way. Thank you so, so much, Mallory.

This has been an extraordinary hour of conversation with you. And we're drawing to a close now. I've still got about a million questions, but you'll just have to come back. You'll have to come back when you write the next installment of your memoir. But I know this podcast is obviously it's all about failure and it's all about what we learn from setbacks and nice mistakes. But I wonder if I could end by asking you what success means to you. How would you define success for you, Mallory Blackman? That's an interesting question. I think success for me is feeling really blessed that when I wake up, I can't wait to go to work. It's feeling really blessed that I have my husband and daughter in my

life. I have my sister and my mum in my life there are times where you know my hubby and daughter and I we say group hug and we all come in for a hug and I think to myself in this moment I am truly happy and I just feel lucky that I have family and I have friends and I'm doing a job I love and I have a roof over my head and food in the fridge but more than the material things it's just that I have friends and family who care about me and I care about them you know there's a song called Nature Boy this is going to sound so Pollyanna so I apologize up front but there's a song called Nature Boy and it was sung by Nat King Cole and George Benson did a cover version and there were two lines in it that really struck me because it's about someone meeting this boy

and he asked for some advice and this Nature Boy says the greatest thing you could ever learn is just to love and be loved in return and for me I feel I have that in my life and I feel I've made a success of my life because I am loved and I love and who can ask for anything more everything else is just gravy but that's the major thing I just think that I'm just so lucky because I have that so I'm sorry if that sounds is so tween but that's how I feel it was beautiful we love you so much i said that was my last question i lied my last question but it's a really quick one it's a really quick one do you have stormzy's mobile in your phone no i don't i have his assistant's own mobile but you know let me put that out there because

there's so many people who say to me oh could you give me stormzy's digits so i can get in touch whatever i do not have his digits and it means then I could turn around to people and say honestly no I don't have his digits you're gonna have to go through the other channels to get in touch with Stormzy so there you go why are you hoping to kind of get him on the program as well? Mallory I'm not even joking along with you he's been one of my dream guests since I started this podcast so we're going to manifest it we're going to manifest that you get into a whatsapp chat with him and that will

be my route to get him on the podcast but I'm focusing on you next time I see him I'll ask him yeah thank you if you could you are an absolute wonder we are so lucky to have you thank you for everything that you do and everything that you are and thank you Mallory Blackman for coming on How To Fail. My pleasure thank you Elizabeth. If you enjoyed this episode of How To Fail with Elizabeth. I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently it helps other people know that we exist.