Black Britain: Writing Back with Bernardine Evaristo, Short Story Stations, Canary Wharf London, photogr. David Parry, PA Media

Award-winning author, poet and activist Bernardine Evaristo has joined forces with Canary Wharf to make short stories from up and coming black authors available for free to thousands of people throughout Black History Month. The Booker Prize winner has selected five black authors to have their stories published in Canary Wharf’s Short Story Stations – the innovative vending machines that will dispense one, three and five minute stories for free to help raise the profile of black writers.

Amaranthe Ivory Violeta pushes her long bangs out of her eyes as I set up my recorder and MacBook on the fourth floor of Central Library. The floor is still closed and being reset for fall 2021, so it’s eerily empty but for us. She holds an orange pencil—blunt from all the writing she has done this week—and a green leatherette journal in her lap, the matching ribbon bookmark draped lazily across her high-waisted shirt. “It’s a neat concept,” she says, describing Short Edition in a quiet voice. The French publisher has recently selected her poem, “Lunar Love,” for publication in its novel dispensers,