creative offerings
40 years ago, Christmas, Ameland, West Frisian Islands, Netherlands
June 2025
Welcome to my Writing World. My plan is to use it for multiple purposes including exploring literature and literary craft with a forensic investigation into my own writing - novels, verse-novels & other works. My books and other writing projects have been the result of a process of trial and error - a slow slog. I never studied creative writing and until I began to understand story structure, I really didn't know what I was doing. Sometimes it takes me many years and many drafts to write a novel, but I've also discarded manuscripts after working on them for years because it took me a long time to realise they weren't working. The journey was never easy or straightforward. For example, some of my books start in one literary genre but end up as another. Confused? Don't worry, I'll explain!
This will also be a platform for some of my earlier unpublished works, which have never seen the light of day (for very good reason...) and so I'll be making several trips to the attic wearing a dust mask to excavate these ancient texts so we can all see what went wrong — I may live to regret it, but I’m a sucker for public humiliation. I'll also share a range of my other published or produced work, such as essays, articles or even poems, which you are unlikely to come across, and certainly not find in one place.
I’m interested in sharing the energy and knowledge of creativity so that it keeps flowing through all of us. We grow through each other - after all, human progress is a group project. I know what it’s like to grow up in a society where you are seen as an outsider and inferior, and this informs my perspective on everything. I want to form a creative community on here where everybody feels welcome. Storytelling is a beautiful, essential and deeply powerful mode of artistry and communication, not just in literature and the arts, but for humanity. Join me in exploring what this means.
curriculum vitae
At Home, London, UK, June 2025
I’m the author of ten books and numerous other works in different genres such as drama, essays, poetry, short fiction. I began my professional career in theatre in 1982 - writer, actor, producer - and published my first book in 1994. My big breakthrough came when I won the Booker Prize 2019 with my eighth book, the novel, Girl, Woman, Other, which made me the first black woman and black British person to win it in its fifty-year history. It came nearly 40 years after I’d started writing professionally and the Prize changed the trajectory of my career. Girl, Woman, Other became a #1 UK Sunday Times bestseller for five weeks and spent 44 weeks in the Top 10. It's been a global bestseller and there are now nearly 40 translations of this and my other books.
In 2021, I published my first memoir is Manifesto: On Never Giving Up (2021) and the short book, Look Again: Feminism (2021), which is part of Tate Britain's 'Look Again' series.
My other novels include Blonde Roots, Lara, The Emperor’s Babe and Mr Loverman, which became an 8-part Fable Pictures/Sony/BBC One drama mini-series in 2024 (now on BBC iPlayer). Adapted by Nathaniel Price, it won two BAFTAS in 2025. (Via BritBox USA/ Binge (Australia)
In 2025, I received the Women’s Prize Outstanding Contribution Award, a one-off literary honour marking 30 years of the Women's Prize. This award was created “for a living female writer in recognition of her body of work, her significant contribution to literature, and her strong advocacy for women. Authors who had been previously longlisted, shortlisted or won the Women’s Prize for Fiction over the past three decades, and had published a minimum of five books, were eligible for the award”. Judged by a jury of five women, I was overwhelmed and overjoyed to be anounced the recipient of such an award.
As a long-time literary advocate, I’ve initiated many inclusion projects designed to increase representation in the arts for talented writers. These include the Complete Works Poetry Mentoring scheme for poets of colour (2007-2017), the Brunel International African Poetry Prize (2012-2022); now renamed the Evaristo African Poetry Prize and produced by the African Poetry Book Fund at Brown University; the Royal Society of Literature/Sky Arts mentoring scheme (2021, 2022) and most recently, the RSL Scriptorium Awards (2025-) -seaside writing retreat. For a two-year period from 2023-2024, I was the Literature Mentor for the Rolex Mentor & Protégé Initiative. I also co-founded Theatre of Black Women (1982-88), Britain’s first such theatre company, and co-founded Spread the Word, London's writer's development agency (1995 -). Since 2020 I have been the curator of Black Britain: Writing Back for Hamish-Hamilton/Penguin Random House, re-publishing books from the past – thirteen to date.
I also deliver many talks, keynotes and lectures, and have accepted over 170 invitations to appear at international festivals and events.
I’ve chaired and judged many prizes and I feel blessed to have received many awards, honours and nominations for my own work, including the British Book Award’s Fiction Book of the Year & Author of the Year (2020), and my books have been on Book of the Year lists over sixty times. I’ve also received three teaching awards at Brunel University of London. I’ve received many honorary doctorates, and earned my PhD studying at Goldsmiths, University of London.
I am an Honorary Fellow of St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford; an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences; the former President of Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, (2020-2024), where I studied acting and community theatre (1979-1982) and a Fellow and the current President of the Royal Society of Literature (2022-2025). I am the second woman to hold this role and the first person of colour in 200 years, and the first person who did not attend Oxford, Cambridge or Eton. Why is it important to always make these points? Because it acknowledges the wider context about historical barriers and social change.
Visit http://www.bevaristo.com for more info.
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My main newsletter will come out on Wednesdays for now, and I will be posting at other times. I’ll find a natural rhythm as my time on here progresses.
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