Malorie Blackman

But I didn't learn about them till I was in my twenties.

So again, that's something I put in my book.

So I kind of think writing is so cathartic for that because when people kind of annoy me or choose me off or whatever, I think you're going in a book.

I'm writing you down for filth.

Yeah, exactly.

Because I remember I was taking my daughter to a supermarket.

We were going to a supermarket to buy whatever.

And I was coming out the supermarket holding my daughter's hand.

And these two black guys were walking towards me.

And they looked at me and they looked at my daughter because my daughter's dual heritage.

And they looked at me and they looked at her and they looked at me and they said, you slag.

and they carried on walking and I was so angry but I had my daughter and she's just chatting away because she didn't I don't she didn't even hear them and it didn't register but I turned around and I really wanted to scream at them but I thought I can't my daughter's here just

now i i think well it depends which curriculum you're talking about because i think some of the curriculums the curricula rather are um are trying to kind of be more inclusive are trying to have more contemporary authors on them i one of my books boys don't cry i think is on one of the school curricula english curricula um and i think

I think they're making progress, but it's slow progress.

Thank you.

I mean, it's this thing that unless you're at the receiving end, it's very hard to kind of realise just how devastating or how powerful those words can be.

And it was this thing, you know, sort of like of...

black apart from with money black tends to have negative connotations so if you're in the black you've then you've got money and if you're in the red you haven't but it's sort of things like black male and black you know and I'm in a black mood and whatever and it's kind of like um it's it's that kind of connotation which is kind of um

It's very insidious.

And so, but I fully claim, and someone asked me to describe myself, I'm a woman and then I'm a black woman with a capital B. And so I kind of, it's about reclaiming that, I think.