World Book Day 2022

 

Books by Nicole Moore

Today is World Book Day (WBD), which happens annually on the first Thursday of March. This year marks WBD's 25th anniversary. The theme this year is a message for all children: You are a reader!

Today, I am remembering and celebrating the books that I brought into fruition between 2005 and 2010, which were independently published collections of creative expressions by black and mixed-heritage women:

*Brown Eyes, 2005
  Sexual Attraction Revealed, 2008
*Hair Power Skin Revolution, 2010

*Funded by an Arts Council England  Grants' for the Arts Award 

These anthologies included poetry and personal essays from a diverse group of black and mixed-heritage women — everyday women expressing themselves in their own unique style, without the white gaze. The writers offered empowering and creative ways of understanding and relating to a range of themes, including gender, 'race', ethnicity, identity, hair, colourism, culture and heritage, with strong and reflective voices, some unheard, some previously published.

Full details are listed under 'Books' on the right of this blog.

In my childhood days, my reading was somewhat limited to books that I could read in my grandparents house — the Encyclopaedia Britannica a general knowledge book, which I would tackle occasionally; a few editions of my grandmother's Readers' Digest magazines (grown up stories that I would dive in and select something appealing) plus children's' novels that I loaned from my local library, which I really enjoyed visiting on Saturday mornings.  Then there were comics like Bunty, a British comic for girls, which consisted of a collection of many small strips, the stories typically being three to five pages long. 

Thankfully, over the last twenty seven years I have widened my reading and with modern technology, I have a vast selection of books on my Kindle. I still have a yearning to  buy 'real' books and have a small collection that are of sentimental value mostly because they have been signed by the authors.

Happy World Book Day!

Comments welcome!

Ideas into Books - a Short Story

On 22nd June, I was invited to give a talk at Northants Writers' Ink, by Mike Richards, the group's Chair. Northants Writers' Ink is a creative writing group based in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, which meets every three weeks from 7-10pm.  I became a member in February this year.

For my talk Ideas into Books, I chose the format of the short story, which meant getting to the point immediately.  I talked about the three books I edited and published, and how I approached writing the Grants for the Arts funding application for the first anthology, Brown Eyes. I then went on to talk about the journey of those books: the launches, the poetry readings/performances and how the monthly Shangwe Poetry Nights at the Poetry Cafe, Covent Garden, London, evolved.

Back-story was drip-fed at appropriate times and covered my community development work and volunteer work experiences in the 1990s that contributed towards enabling me to get to grips with a tough Arts Council bid. The 60-minute talk soon became an interactive one, which was what I was hoping for and was well received by the six group members.  I thoroughly enjoyed sharing my writing journey and thought the short story format worked particularly well.