SUBSCRIBER NEWS
Life After LOCKS
‘Liverpool Literary Agency (LLA), registered in 2020, are the first literary agency Liverpool has ever had,’ writes subscriber Ashleigh Nugent.
‘I am proud to announce that I am the latest author on to be taken under their wing. Moreover, to our knowledge, no major publisher has ever signed a fiction deal with a black male author from Liverpool. And LLA are working hard to make me the first.
‘My book, LOCKS, is currently published through my own company, RiseUp CIC. We deliver projects in prisons which combine creative writing and mindset techniques. As you read on you will understand why this work is so important to me.
‘LOCKS is based on a true story. When I left school, in 1992, I had already been arrested three times. Each time was a clear case of racial profiling. We lived in a leafy suburb where racism was a dayto-day experience.
‘I was diagnosed with ADHD at a young age, and I found school incredibly difficult and frustrating. Low expectation and a lack of Black role models also left me feeling disenfranchised with the education system.
‘1993 was the year of the horrific death of Stephen Lawrence. The racist nature of the attack and the lacklustre response of the police felt personal. It hurt. And it drove me to seek a better understanding of my place in this country.
‘At that time, I knew virtually nothing about Black people, Black culture or Black history. And that’s why I went to Jamaica: to find my roots, identity and belonging. ‘It didn’t quite turn out that way. Within days of being in Jamaica I had been mugged and stabbed, arrested and imprisoned. I was caged in an underground dungeon with no flushing toilets, I was beaten unconscious, I watched two friends drown and I was forced to flee the country illegally. And, I discovered that, there, I was the white boy.
‘Fast forward to 1997, and I was a 21-year-old selffulfilling prophecy: I had never read a book, I had no qualifications, and I had little chance of a career due to my criminal record. But writing changed everything. I was just sick of hiding the fact that I wrote poems. So, I went to college, I joined a rap band and found my outlet, I met like-minded people, I left university with a 1st Class BA Hons in English Literature, I taught myself techniques to control my own thoughts, feelings, interactions and behaviours.