Candice Carty-Williams

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams is my favourite debut of the year so far - I’m not surprised it was the subject of a bidding war. It tells the story of Queenie Jenkins, a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, who works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white, middle-class peers. When she breaks up with her long-term boyfriend, she enters a period of anxiety, and awful relationships. I LOVE this book - it’s funny and poignant and youthful and feels so relevant. Reading Candice’s writing is like speaking to a friend - as was interviewing her. We talk about the shocking under-representation of BAME writers, battling confidence issues and how she writes in the middle of the night, and much, much more. Buy Queenie at https://www.waterstones.com/book/queenie/candice-carty-williams/9781409180050 Twitter: @aliceazania @CandiceC_W ‏ Instagram: @aliceazania @candicec_w Edited by Chelsey Moore

Om Podcasten

The Sunday Salon is a podcast celebrating brilliant books and the women who write them, hosted by journalist Alice-Azania Jarvis. Each week she chats to an inspiring female author about her work, her career, how she writes, what she reads and everything in between. This is not some academic textual analysis – it’s about finding the stories behind the stories. Tune in each Sunday to hear from guests including Isabel Allende, Jessie Burton, Holly Bourne, Diana Evans, Elizabeth Day, Nimco Ali and Sophie Kinsella. Edited by Chelsey Moore.