As a black British writer, I had to bypass mainstream publishers to get a book deal

Despite having what some might consider an interesting ‘origin story’, it felt for a long time like my journey was also somehow a hindrance to building a writing career in the UK, writes Maame Blue

I found a white industry averse to any real diversity (Getty/iStockphoto)

I have a bit of an obsession with people. Or rather, how people treat each other. Even as a child, I could be found chatting away to myself in the corner, putting on a one-person play with ten different characters, all at passionate odds with each other.

Yes, I was a weird kid, and I’ve made my peace with that.

And I knew I wanted to be a writer before I really understood what that was. But coming from a Ghanaian family of doctors, teachers, social workers and directors, I was expected to go to university and get a good job, and “writer” didn’t really fit into the categories of approved employment options that were presented to me at the time – options that many of my other friends with immigrant parents and grandparents also felt restricted by. So I turned my attention to psychology instead. It still fed my love of all things involving people, whilst getting a respectable nod from the elders in my family. And I thought it would be enough to satiate the constant storylines my mind kept conjuring up, that I took as an indication of my passion for people, rather than a desire to create their narratives myself.