Children’s author Malorie Blackman: ‘As a teenager I had never read any books by Black authors’

Malorie Blackman was born in Merton, London, in February 1962 to Barbadian parents who were part of the Windrush generation. She studied computer science at Thames Polytechnic and became a systems programmer. Her first book, Not So Stupid!, a collection of horror and science fiction was published in 1990 and since then she has written more than 60 books for children and young adults, including the celebrated Noughts & Crosses series.  

She was the children’s laureate from 2013-15, setting up the YA Lit Con, the first large-scale public literature dedicated to young adult books in the UK. In 2022 Malorie Blackman became the first writer of children’s and young adult fiction to win the PEN Pinter Prize.

Speaking to The Big Issue for her Letter to My Younger Self, Malorie Blackman reflects on her heritage, her experiences as a Black writer and her time writing for Doctor Who.  

At the age of 16, my preoccupations were reading and writing. I was writing poetry for my own amusement and just getting through school. I was studying chemistry, classical civilisation and sociology. Within two weeks of chemistry I realised that, as much as I loved the subject, there was no way I could do an A level in it. So I changed it to English and thank god I did. I think when I was choosing, I was thinking about getting a good job. Instead of choosing stuff that I enjoyed. If I had to speak to my younger self, I’d say choose the things you’re interested in in life. 

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My mum taught me about resilience from an early age because she had to dig deep when she and my dad split up. Suddenly she was responsible for paying all the bills and looking after me and my brothers. We were stony broke. Relationships in the family were fractured but it was much better when we finally had our own place. It wasn’t brilliant by any measure. But it was ours, and it was certainly better than some of the places, like homeless hostels, that we’d lived in before. My mum was working really hard to make ends meet and put food on the table. I had Saturday jobs to try and help out. I was thinking, should I just leave school at 16 and try to get a job? Then out of the blue came a letter about an educational maintenance allowance. And I was eligible for it. If that hadn’t come we wouldn’t be having this conversation now. It was a lifeline. 

My mum and dad told us about Barbados. And when relatives came around they would talk about “back home in Barbados” and so on, but they were just stories I avidly listened to. I didn’t actually go to Barbados myself until I was in my early 20s. Whenever I explicitly asked my mum about Barbados, she would say it was a while ago. Later on she became more forthcoming about her childhood.

When I did go to Barbados I felt less of a connection that I’d hoped. The experience was soured a bit because I went on a package holiday and I was the only Black person on the plane. And when we got off I was the only customer they pulled aside to look in my bags. So it wasn’t a great start. But then I had a lovely two weeks. It was just so nice knowing that this was where my parents were born, and here were all the places I’d heard so much about. But I expected to feel like ‘yes, I’m coming home’. And I didn’t. 

I’d tell my teenage self to embrace who she is, and don’t be embarrassed by it and don’t be ashamed of it. I was strange. I was weird. I would do things like, if I set out of the house on my left foot one day, I’d have to set out on my right foot the next day. I wouldn’t walk on the cracks. If I was sitting reading I didn’t realise I was rocking back and forth. I was overly literal and didn’t get a lot of jokes. I’d be thinking, why is everyone else laughing? I don’t get it. Why have you said that? I would take people and words at face value. I used to try and suppress my instincts – I knew it wasn’t how other people thought or felt or acted. Only years later, when I was reading about neurodivergence did I think, ah, that’s what I am. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and I should actually embrace that part of myself. 

I think my younger self wouldn’t believe that I actually made a living out of something I had never even considered as a teenager. I never read any books written by Black authors or about Black characters. The first play I read with a Black character was Othello when I was 17. The first book was The Color Purple, and that was when I was 21. So even though I’d been writing for myself since I was eight or nine for my own amusement, it never occurred to me that I could actually make a living out of it. 

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If I could go back and speak to my younger self, I would say, don’t be afraid to take risks. If you think you know what you really want to do, just get on with it. That was a lesson that took me a while to learn. And don’t be afraid to be laughed at. Some people might laugh at you when you say this is what you want to do. Just do your own thing. 

The first big breakthrough when it came to writing was when I finally got published after 82 rejection letters. I was 28. I had eight or nine different books rejected, one after the other. Years passed and everyone was still saying no. But still I would knuckle down and get on with it. As soon as I finished one book and sent it off, I would immediately start the next. I would always have four or five ideas on the go in my head. Then I got a letter from Live Wire books saying “Dear Malorie Blackman we would love to print your stories”. After all those rejection letters it felt truly amazing, completely joyous. Because I’d started to wonder if I was wasting my time. I made a deal with myself that if I got 100 rejection letters I would have a rethink. But I only got to 82. Then later I had a real breakthrough with Noughts and Crosses, because that was picked as a BBC Big Read. And it won the Federation of Children’s Book Award, which is voted for by tens of thousands of children. That really changed things for me. 

If I could have one last conversation with anyone I think it would be my brother because he died during the Covid pandemic. We weren’t close and I kind of regret that. It would have been nice to sit down and have a proper conversation about his life, and just be closer than we were when he died. That would have been good. 

Stories are so important in engendering empathy in people, they give you a chance to walk in someone else’s shoes for a while and see life through someone else’s eyes. One of my books, Boys Don’t Cry, has a character who’s gay and I’ve had letters from teens saying the book helped them to come out to their parents. I’ve had letters from people about the Troubles in Noughts and Crosses with people saying, ah, you’re actually talking about the situation in Ireland, between Protestants and Catholics. I love that: readers relating it to their own circumstances. That’s why I think there needs to be more emphasis on the arts in schools. I’m not saying science subjects are not important, of course they are. But I think this emphasis on STEM is the wrong way to go. You can understand yourself and others better through drama and music and books and films. We ignore them at our peril, because they are vital, for our relationships and for our mental health.

I was thrilled to be even considered for writing for Doctor Who. And the fact that I got to write about Rosa Parks – she’s such a hero, I just find her so amazing. She had such courage to do that [Parks was a Black woman who refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger in segregated Alabama]. And she knew what the repercussions would be; she lost her job, she had death threats, she had to move state. So writing about her was in itself a dream come true. That was definitely one of my happy moments, just being in the writers’ room of Doctor Who, being part of that process. I look back and there have been so many times that I just had that ‘pinch me’ moment. Am I dreaming? Because this is a really lovely dream. 

Malorie Blackman is an ambassador for Cardboard Citizens. Her autobiography Just Sayin’ is out now (Merky, £10.99).You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

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