BBC’s Director of Creative Diversity pushes for “a whole new generation of diverse voices” in literature

The BBC’s first ever Director for Creative Diversity has created a new publishing imprint to encourage diversity in literature.

June Sarpong OBE, former television broadcaster and now an important voice in diverse creativity in the British media, has vowed to help diverse voices who are struggling to break into the “exclusive” world of literature in the UK.

HQ Creative Inclusion Lab–a division of HarperCollins Publishers–wants to make the literature industry more accessible to those who may have been struggling to be seen and heard, including disabled writers, people from the working-class, and those from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds. They are currently seeking un-agented, first-time writers of fiction and non-fiction.

The HQ imprint has so far received over 50 submissions since their start up.

Sarpong told the PA news agency: “Literature in itself can be quite exclusive in that often we have only looked to a particular kind of person as having the ability to be able to express themselves on paper – and to put their thoughts into words and then into a manuscript or some sort of document that people will be happy to read. I think that has been the case for a very long time.

“Look at women having to write under male pseudonyms. Even JK Rowling, that’s not that long ago. There has been a long established way of doing things and it is not going to change overnight.

“Yes, over the past few years we have had some fantastic breakthroughs but they haven’t been the norm. We can list those names. We know them off the top of our heads. We can probably count them all on two hands.Really, what I hope is that we are able to create a whole new generation of diverse voices, telling very different types of stories to a mainstream audience.

“That’s what I really want to get across here. This is not diverse stories just for diverse audiences. No, we see this as stories that will reach and connect with as wide an audience as possible.”

“The way we see it, it is just having that different perspective, that different lens on something in itself will give you a different product, even if it is about something we are all familiar with. We are not pigeonholing any of our writers to just write about their identity group, not at all.”