I cannot stop thinking about the Re-Thinking 'Diversity' in Publishing report, which, as I said yesterday, I particularly urge all my industry colleagues to read: https://www.spreadtheword.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Rethinking_diversity_in-publishing_WEB.pdf

One of the things I've heard most often in this discussion is that the industry doesn't want writers of colour to write commercial fiction, meaning romcoms or crime etc. and I just wanted to offer one editor's perspective (mine) on that.

I'm nervous about this because despite 12 years industry experience, holding arguably one of the most senior positions it is possible to have in book retail, and four years of commissioning and publishing, I still feel like an outsider.

But seeing my wonderful, talented author @tanyabyrne 's tweets last night broke my heart. I don't want writers of colour to think editors only want them to write the books that white writers can't. That they can only write about race or their pain. That they have to be literary.

From the very beginning of my publishing career, the first thing I've asked for when I meet with agents is for commercial fiction from underrepresented voices, hoping that we could have a discussion about what I mean by that.

Some agents weren't open to this, some said they wished they had something like that, others said that's what they wanted too and they had something coming etc. But not much showed up in my inbox and I started to think maybe it was me. I internalised it.

And I also started to worry about some of the things the report raises, would I know how to "project manage" (what an editor does in many ways) a book where the primary audience was not one we were used to selling to. Would I fail at that. Would I let talented writers down.

And I think what I'm trying to say is that I am in a position of power to make change and I got so afraid of doing it wrong. Yes, I'm brown and from an "underrepresented group" but I didn't do enough. I haven't done enough. This report has shamed me. I am going to try harder.