Just Sayin': Malorie Blackman in conversation with Jackie Kay
Channel: British Library
Date: 2023-02-16

This event took place on the 23 of November 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.

The long-awaited autobiography of one of the world's greatest children's writers.

Malorie Blackman is one of Britain’s best and most beloved children’s authors, the landmark Noughts & Crosses series included among her many books.

Her journey to becoming a writer was a long one. Before her BAFTA award wins, her OBE and appointment as Children’s Laureate in 2013, Malorie was a young girl from South London who fell in love with books and found a home in her local library. From this early embracing of the wonder of the world and long dream of becoming a writer, her life’s journey has been an eventful one marked by trauma, setbacks and triumph.

Malorie’s new autobiography Just Sayin' is funny, frank, and full of life lessons and deeply held convictions about society, healthcare and the arts. It is the deeply personal and vividly compelling account of a natural storyteller who defied expectations and inspired a generation.

At this special event Malorie talks to another great name in British literature, Jackie Kay, poet, fiction writer and memoirist who has also written for younger people.

Malorie Blackman has written over 70 books for children and young adults, including the Noughts & Crosses series, Thief and a science-fiction thriller, Chasing the Stars. Many of her books have also been adapted for stage and television, including a BAFTA-award-winning BBC production of Pig-Heart Boy and a Pilot Theatre stage adaptation by Sabrina Mahfouz of Noughts & Crosses. There is also a major BBC production of Noughts & Crosses, with Roc Nation (Jay-Z’s entertainment company) curating the soundtrack as executive music producer. In 2005 Malorie was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her distinguished contribution to the world of children’s books. In 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children’s literature, and between 2013 and 2015 she was the Children’s Laureate. Most recently Malorie wrote for the Doctor Who series on BBC One, and the fifth novel in her Noughts & Crosses series, Crossfire.

Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh. A poet, novelist and writer of short stories, she has enjoyed great acclaim for her work for both adults and children and was the third modern Makar, the Scottish Poet Laureate from 2016 to 2021. Her first novel Trumpet won the Authors' Club First Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. She is also the author of three collections of stories with Picador, Why Don't You Stop Talking, Wish I Was Here, and Reality, Reality; two poetry collections, Fiere and Bantam; and her memoir, Red Dust Road. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University, and divides her time between Glasgow and Manchester, where she is currently Chancellor of the University of Salford.

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