Event Details

Lancaster University lecturer Okechukwu Nzelu will lead a panel discussion with panelists including author/action Paterson Joseph. They will discuss their own work and interests in the context of Black British history, and the successes and challenges faced by Black British creatives today.

Lancaster University lecturer in Creative Writing Okechukwu Nzelu will lead a panel discussion with panlists including author/actor Paterson Joseph.

Together they will discuss their own work and interests in the context of Black British history, and the successes and challenges faced by Black British creatives today. The panel will include a audience Question and Answer session.

After the panel there will an opportunity to discuss the themes of the evening further with the panelists during a complimentary drinks reception.

About the speakers

Okechukwu (Okey) Nzelu lectures at Lancaster University in Creative Writing. He is also an author of two novels, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney and Here Again Now.

Paterson Joseph is an actor and author. His novel The Secret Diaries of Ignatius Sancho is out now in paperback.

Hannah Chukwu is Editorial Director of Dialogue Books and Board Member at the education equality charity The Brilliant Club. She is the award-winning series editor for Black Britain: Writing Back and also edited Five Dials magazine and was the policy and campaigns consultant for Lit in Colour.

Danielle Jawando is an author and screenwriter. Her debut Young Adult novel, And the Stars Were Burning Brightly, won best senior novel in the Great Reads Award, and was shortlisted for a number of other awards.

Marcia Hutchinson was born to Windrush generation Jamaican parents in Bradford. She was the first pupil from her comprehensive school to go to Oxford. She worked as a lawyer before founding the educational publishing company Primary Colours, which she ran until 2014. She was awarded an MBE in 2011 for services to Cultural Diversity. She is co-author with Kate Griffin (under the pseudonym Lila Cain) of the historical fiction novel The Blackbirds of Saint Giles, which will be published by Simon and Schuster in January 2025. Mercy, her literary debut as a solo writer is currently on submission.