History fascinates me. I’ve always enjoyed reading about people who lived in the past. As a teen, I loved classic literature and devoured books by Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. But as a young Black girl growing up in Britain, I was always curious as to where people who looked like me fitted into the picture. When I discovered that there were thousands of Black people living in Georgian England, I had to know more, and I had to share that knowledge through my writing. 

Though they are fictional characters in my novel, Lizzie and Belle are based on real historical figures. Lizzie Sancho was one of the daughters of the African writer and composer, Ignatius Sancho, and his wife Ann. Ignatius was a loving husband and a devoted father; his famous letters are studded with illuminating details about his family.  Educated at home, the Sancho girls were highly literate and extremely musical. Visitors to the house said they could often be heard singing and playing the harpsichord in the back room!  Dido Belle was the daughter of a young African woman and a British naval captain, but she was raised at Kenwood House by her great uncle and aunt, Lord and Lady Mansfield.

When I first saw the portrait of Dido Belle at Kenwood House, it was like a thunderbolt! I felt as though I were staring into a mirror. Later on in life, seeing the portrait of Ignatius Sancho, and reading his warm, funny and compassionate letters, transported me into his world and I just had to write about it. But the voices and stories of girls and women in the 18th century were largely absent, even more so the voices of Black women and girls from that time. So I had to use fiction, to create a space in which I could imagine versions of those characters, imagine what they might have had to say. 

When I’m writing a book, it’s as though the book and its characters are living in my head for months. They become my daily work, but I also think about them the moment I wake up, while I’m travelling on the bus, as I’m drifting off to sleep. I carry notebooks and pens everywhere with me, and will write whenever a thought, or a description, or some dialogue comes to me! 

I visualise each scene very vividly, as though I am watching a film, but different scenes move into my mind at different times. So I’ll write each scene as it appears in my head, first by hand in a notebook. The next version of that will be typed up on my laptop, with changes. As I draft and re-draft I move between handwritten and digital versions of the work. For the first creative impulses, my thoughts move more freely into a hand holding a pen. But working digitally is brilliant for moving bits of text around. I like to edit in pencil on printed pages. Behind the finished, printed book there are many ‘shadow’ books: draft versions written to get to the final version that is published for everyone to read.  

The mystery story is a challenge to write! The plot is like an intricate puzzle, with many tiny pieces, carved into complicated shapes that must fit together perfectly.

As the reader reads the story, it’s as though different areas of the jigsaw puzzle are fitting into place simultaneously, until the entire picture is complete and the reader can see how it all fits together. And, you have to give the reader the chance to put the pieces together themselves! 

One thing I learned is that you need to know how the story ends before you begin. The what, the when, the where, the how, the who and the why of the crime must all be very clear to the writer before the real writing begins. Once everything is decided, you are working out how to let your readers know, little by little, what the finished picture looks like.

There is so much fun to be had in laying down clues! A look, a gesture, a comment from a character. And each time you lay down a clue, you have to disguise it a little so that it is not too obvious to the reader. It’s a very delicate balance to achieve.

One thing I loved about writing a detective story with two brilliant heroines is that the reader can go on that journey with Lizzie and Belle as guides. Each girl has a different perspective on the events and can shed new light on the characters, on the clues, on the plot as it unfolds.  

On a practical level, it involves lots of colour coding of my written text, lots of index cards and lots of post-it notes! 

The research is so much fun! You feel as though you really are stepping back into the past. Much of my research is done on foot. I spend whole days walking the streets of London, imagining my characters walking those same streets 250 years earlier. There is so much history still on show in the landscape of London, in the buildings. If you look up, you will see so much more than the view at street level alone. Spending time in the locations where the books take place was so important: Kenwood House, Hampstead Heath, Covent Garden, St Giles.  

I spend a lot of time in galleries, looking at paintings from the period to help me picture the world I am trying to write.  

Using real historical documents is very important for me. I was working at the British Library as a workshop leader for school groups when I first came across Ignatius Sancho’s letters. When I read them, his voice leapt off the page and straight into my heart – as though he were actually talking directly to me! So I had to have the girls write letters to each other in the books.  

The historical records that tell us about Black life in London are scarce. And they are often just tiny fragments of information. For example, there is a short notice in a 1764 newspaper that describes a party in a Fleet Street tavern attended by 57 Black people, playing musical instruments, singing and dancing. It is just a few lines long, but it offers a fascinating glimpse into lives we do not get to hear about. I immediately want to know who those people were! What were they celebrating? How often did they meet in that way? What did that music sound like?

For me, the writing is a way of imagining answers to those questions, of bringing that glimpse to life. 

For a long time, parts of British history have been kept out of the spotlight, because they are uncomfortable to talk about, to hear about. This is particularly true of the history of Transatlantic Slavery. Millions of African people were forcibly taken from their homes, their families, and sold as property to work in brutal conditions in America and the Caribbean – this is not an easy story to confront. But we must confront it, and we must understand that within that history, there are still so many stories that have gone unheard. Stories of Black resistance, courage, rebellion, fighting back, running away. And even those people who just survived and did what they could to look after themselves and the people close to them. 

People found ways of not just surviving but thriving. Of leading family lives, of finding peace, of finding happiness, even joy. The Sancho family, it seems, were a profoundly joyful loving family, despite the hardships they faced. Their story is inspirational. I wanted my readers to see and spend time with that beautiful family, to experience their joy and their love for each other. Where are the stories of loving Black families in Georgian Britain? 

I used to work at the British Library as a schools workshop leader. I loved using the historical documents and letters and images to inspire creative writing. That’s very much how I work myself.  

The British Library has a vast collection of materials: inspiration can come from anywhere! On the British Library website there is an illustration of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, that helped me ‘see’ the climactic opening scene of Drama and Danger in minute detail. 

In my books you’ll see different forms of writing scattered throughout the pages: theatre programmes and playbills, newspaper articles, personal letters, diaries. Discovering that kind of material in the archives is like finding buried treasure.  

I wanted to bring those materials into the books. Each book is written in the first person, from the perspective of either Lizzie or Belle. As well as serving as clues for the girls to investigate, the historical materials are a great way of involving a wider range of voices in the telling of the story.  

What I love about history and the stories hidden within it, is that it adds new perspectives to places you think you already know. So I may have walked down a particular street many times, but when I start to imagine all the different people who may have walked it two centuries ago, it’s like conjuring a whole new world.

The images that we’re often shown of the 18th century, from paintings, from television adaptations, from films, don’t include the real range of people that actually lived in Britain.

London, for example, was a very diverse city, with people from Africa, Asia, the Americas, all living here, side by side, working, travelling in and out of the city, but we rarely see images that show us that. When I read about the communities of Black  abolitionists and activists living in Georgian London I felt compelled to bring them to life on the page ion glorious detail.  

Absolutely! There are so many skills involved in sleuthing. I rarely leave the house without a notebook and pen. Not only does it help me to remember tiny details, but it changes what I notice.  You never know when a snippet of conversation, or an observation of someone’s reaction to an event, is going to come in handy. 

I believe that the work of a writer is very similar to the work of a historian – and to the work of a detective! You have to follow your curiosity as far as it takes you, and then go a little bit further! Keep asking ‘why?’ Observe closely, listen carefully, keep noting things down. You are constantly gathering information. Look at your research in different ways, from new angles. See what new connections you spark by rearranging the pieces.  

My father read to me from a very young age. He made up stories that he narrated as I was falling asleep; I pictured those stories so vividly, I still remember them now. He taught me early on that anyone could be a storyteller. My first literary loves were fairy tales. I was so drawn to the darkness of them, the magic of them. It felt as though they had been around forever. The first versions I loved were the Ladybird versions of Grimm tales with their bizarre, spooky illustrations. I also had a set of books illustrated by a woman called Hilda Boswell. I loved the early books in The Chronicles of Narnia series. And as a teen I read Judy Blume’s books avidly.  

But it was only when I discovered African-American literature that I felt, even as a Black British girl, represented in some way on the page. The Friends by Rosa Guy was a turning point for me. In my teens I discovered the inspiring poetry of Grace Nichols and everything began to change from there.  

1. Read! Read as much as you can.  Listen, too, to stories, poems, novels. Notice what you like and what you don’t like and why. 

2. Give yourself time and space to think, to imagine. Thinking about your stories in your head, seeing what the characters ‘do’ when you imagine them is an important part of the work.  

3. Write!! I grew up keeping notebooks and diaries. Get into a regular writing habit. Write relaxed, write to play. It shouldn’t feel like a chore or a task or something you are being tested on. Your writing is for you. 

4. Speak or read your work out loud. Listen to the sound of it as you draft, edit, re-write. If you can, record it and listen back. 

5. Get together with friends who like to write. Share your work with each other. Perform it, read it out loud, encourage each other. Writing doesn’t always have to be a solitary activity.  

6. Write about what matters to you. You are the only person who can tell your own story in your own unique way. Own it.