One of the most prominent rising authors in British literature, Candice Brathwaite has become renowned for her ability to understand. A polymathic presence whose specificities spread across advocacy, journalism and presenting, Brathwaite became a Sunday Times best selling author with the release of I Am Not Your Baby Mother, a book that arduously addresses the distinct experiences of Black British mothers, a subject that lays deep in her passions.
The writer will be releasing her next book, Manifesto, on 5th September via Quercus Books (pre-order here), accompanied by a UK tour with dates in London, Birmingham, Edinburgh and more. The new novel tackles the mental block around success that we all struggle with at times. In the book, Brathwaite dissects the positive steps needed to reach personal achievement, specifically as a minority, focusing on the four pillars of Wellness, Wealth, Love and Happiness. It all signals the significance of – you guessed it – manifestation.
We caught up with the stalwart to reflect on her journey towards book-writing, the process behind her work, and the thought behind her forthcoming novel…
Hey Candice! How are you? How is your summer?
I’m doing very well. My summer is quite busy, given that the new book Manifesto is coming out right at the beginning of September. So August for me – let’s not forget, I’ve got three kids. I’ve got a six year old, a ten year old and a sixteen year old stepdaughter. It’s trying to strike that balance between relaxing, having some very necessary downtime, but also a part of my brain being super on and super engaged. Because the second we go into September, it always feels like a new year – the kids going back to school, everyone’s back in the office, it’s go go go until Christmas. So I am enjoying my summer whilst trying to work wisely.
Talk us through the writing origins, and your journey up to reaching this point as a best-selling novelist.
So I actually used to work in publishing. I was a marketing assistant at Penguin Random House. They held a competition, looking for people who didn’t have a degree or any connections to the publishing world. Because let’s be honest, it can be a very typically, iron gated type of place. If you didn’t go to a certain uni, or nepotism isn’t on your side, it can feel really hard to get into publishing. So way back in 2014, Penguin Random House launched a competition called the scheme – thousands and thousands of applicants for only four job roles and I was able to win one of them.
What I really learned there though, is what I already knew, is that I didn’t want to market other people’s books. I wanted to be the writer having their book marketed. I clocked that, in 2013/2014, publishing was really leaning towards wanting to work with potential authors who had large social media followings. I was like aye aye captain so in a true Pisces fashion, one day I just quit and decided that I’m gonna go all in on building social media platforms that make me attractive to publishers.
It was a very roundabout way of doing things, but clearly it paid off because now we’re here on book number four. I Am Not Your Baby Mother: what it’s like to be a black British mother came out May 2020, and went straight into the Sunday Times bestseller list and sat there for six weeks. It really was one of a kind, it still is, at that time that book was the first ever book to be written by a Black British woman about Black British motherhood, to enter the British Library in May 2020. I think it kind of just blew the hinges off this idea that we should only want to hear about motherhood or parenting stories from typically white middle class women, or really slick parenting influencers – who either are really slick, or they’re really comedians or they’re trying to be comedians. I don’t know, I don’t want to judge. Admittedly, having my first book be such a success means that I have kind of just gotten away with now writing what I want. We’ve landed on Manifesto, and it feels like the easiest book I’ve ever written because it just feels natural, and like something I want to discuss, but being a black British author, you don’t get to do that the first time round. We really saw this inside the black square summer of 2020. Typically, publishing houses want stories from a woman like me that are trauma-ridden, that are about race, blah, blah, blah, I’m so bored and over it. I can say that though, knowing that it’s a privilege to now just, you know, get book deals to write exactly what I want to write.
When you set out to write a novel, what is the initial process? How do you overcome the overwhelming nature of the task?
I have no process, okay, I am completely chaotic. I don’t have a particular writing time or writing space. Most of my books are written in the Notes app on my phone. I’m not one of these writers that is so snooty and on such a high horse that you know, “I must sit up my typewriter at 6am in order to be defined as a…”, give me a break, we’re all on the move, the closest device to you will do. Sometimes it’s handwritten, there’s an idea written on a napkin of a restaurant – I just get the job done. Of course, the initial process is the idea.
I have a terrible habit of writing without planning, this is so awful. You know, if I would advise anything, it’s always to have a structured plan, because it does mean that sometimes I’m wasting 40 – 50,000 words, because I’ve just allowed myself to go on this meandering kind of loop and just like, gallop through these metaphorical writing fields. I want to say don’t do that, but it kind of always comes up trumps because also it allows me to see many different ending points and landing points when it comes to fiction, different character trajectories, than if I were to have a concrete plan. But because of time and you wanting to stay on track, or at least you want to stay on track, I would advise that people have a plan, not that you asked me for advice.
I just get the job done. So I typically commit to between 5000 to 7000 words a day, that must be done. Now, are all of those 5000 words gonna be printable? Unlikely. But I have to show up. I’m not waiting to be inspired, I don’t think that happens as often as a writer would like. I’m not trying to cry my way, or drink my way through writer’s block, I show up, I open the app, I open the laptop, I take out the pen, I do the thing. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s not my job to edit the thing. I don’t self edit. I self relieve, I let it out and then I allow my editor to do what they are best at. So for me, I think I’ve done it so many times now, it doesn’t feel overwhelming. Because I know that as long as I show up and write this many words a day, this book will get finished.
What was the thought behind writing I Am Not Your Baby Mother? Where did the idea come from?
At the time that’s all publishing houses wanted from people who shared their parenting lives online. I guess at the time, I could have been defined as a parenting influencer, and to be honest, I Am Not Your Baby Mother was really me giving a proverbial middle finger up to the whole system. I had so many great ideas, one of them being Sista Sister, and I was turned down for books so many times because all people wanted was a parenting book. I was like, Oh, you want a parenting book? Sure. God, yeah, I couldn’t give a damn about weaning, I couldn’t give a damn if you let your kid eat food off the floor. Let’s talk about the fact that Black women in Britain are five times more likely to die in childbirth than their white counterparts. Let’s talk about the fact that I have left London, the city that I was born and raised in and nurtured me, because I’m already thinking about my Black son’s trajectory, not just within the school system, which is more likely to ignore him than anyone else. But peer pressure from gangs and knife crime. Let’s talk about the fact that as a black mother, I don’t get to call my child ‘Tixylix’ or ‘Sherbert’, because I understand the power behind a name and how my child’s CV could look. I was like, Oh, you want to talk about motherhood, baby. I’m gonna do that thing. So it actually came from annoyance, and as per usual with me, just wanting to be a little bit difficult.
The book addresses the experiences of Black British mothers. Why was it important for you to shine a light on such?
It had just never been done before. I had my first child in 2013. And at that time, I had to get all of my parenting materials sent from the US, and Amazon was not as slick as it is now, so these books were taking sometimes two months to reach me. Of course, there are similarities between me and an African American woman about to give birth. But there are also stark differences and I couldn’t believe that I couldn’t source parenting material that spoke directly to me. If there’s one thing I enjoy doing is closing a gap in the market. Let’s put aside my desires as a writer and my innate need to communicate and be creative. First and foremost, I’m a very slick businesswoman, and every point I have noted where it’s like, that’s not been done – let’s get there first. That’s also how I felt about I Am Not Your Baby Mother, like, Okay, if we’re gonna do it, we’re gonna do it big. And so more to the point, I wanted that kind of support and work to be available for mothers, for women that look like me, you know, at the time that it came out, we were very much on this ‘Everyone’s trying to work on their white privilege and unlearn their unconscious bias type vibe’, so the book was released into the world at a really crucial moment. Now I don’t get to define the zeitgeist or how perfect the situations can be for the work to do well, it just landed that way. Above and beyond that, it’s still very, very necessary work to the point that it is now on UK midwives’ essential reading list when you’re training to become a midwife. I think honestly, that is the bee’s knees. I don’t think I meditate on that as much as I should.
What is your best advice for a first time mum?
I always say, outside of protecting your physical, mental, spiritual health, make no major decisions until your child is two. I don’t know where we got the notion of snap-back culture nine months in. No. I really didn’t start to see a glimpse of my true self until both my children were two. There was a sleep pattern, they had better communication skills, I was feeling more like myself. With Esme, my first born, I was in such a haste to, quote unquote ‘be myself again’ that, looking back, I made some decisions that I had no business making. I really took my time with RJ, my son, and it just made a world of difference. So I always say that to new mums – no huge life changing decisions, until that child is two.
Outside of literature, what are your main career pursuits, and how do they promote advocacy and your morals?
Do you know what, they don’t promote advocacy or my morals. I think that as a black woman, that’s a burden that gets given to me a lot. Why should my work have to advocate? Why should my work have to be rooted in my morals, I mean, we would like it to be, but maybe I’m just working to have fun or working to find myself or working through something or working it around something. Not everything has to be so damn heavy or so responsible. So right now, my work doesn’t promote anything. It promotes my thoughts and feelings and me having a good time. But there is no stick in the sand of me being like, I’m doing this work to free these people. First and foremost now, my work advocates for Candice Brathwaite and I think I’m very deserving of being that selfish. I’ve spent the last 30 years constantly overthinking how I can be in service to other people. Now, I’m in the mode of being in service to myself first and foremost.
My main career pursuits outside of literature – that’s a really good one actually. I’m having this conversation with you at a crossroads in my life. I am now really leaning towards public speaking, towards workshops, actually, anything that isn’t digital and front-facing.The people around me have said it best of late I’m, I’m very visible, but I’m no longer accessible. So you may see me in lots of places, but to actually connect with me is not as easy as it once was. And that’s because the way my career has gone for the last decade, it can be really exhausting. And I can find myself oversharing or boosted in the ego because you know, the more you share, the more authentic people think you are, the higher the engagement la dee da dee da. To be frank, I can no longer give a shit. So my career pursuits now are really turning towards doing this work in a more holistic personal way. You know, doing sellout speaking tours, really working with 50 to 100 people on their writing skills on ways they could be unlocking the life they deserve. And then there’s an outer ring of that where I’m now starting to explore the things that I would lie and say I never had time for. I’m actually heading out on tour really soon, my biggest tour to date and I’m really looking forward to that.
I am absolutely obsessed with death culture. So by that, I mean, you know, the way we choose to care for our loved ones, once they depart their bodies. And so somewhere in my mind, I would love to retrain as someone who is legally able to embalm bodies and more to the point, I have my own line of funeral homes. So I’m allowing myself to like, investigate that area more, because whilst it might not be right now, that might be something I’m gonna do in the next 10 years. Other than that, I am creatively open for business. Wherever the universe takes me or sparks inspiration, I’m gonna run down that path and figure some things out.
