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A story about a modern-day Oliver Twist has won the second Diverse Voices award, created by publisher Frances Lincoln to showcase multicultural writing and to find new talent.
This year’s Diverse Voices winner is Tom Avery, a teacher from Birmingham. His story, Too Much Trouble, is a contemporary adventure story about two immigrant brothers who fall in with a gang of pickpockets when their family abandons them.
Avery teaches in a large comprehensive school where half the children do not speak English as a first language. The story is aimed at children aged nine and over. He said: “I wrote Too Much Trouble when I heard the story of a boy and his sisters who had been sent to live in England without their parents. I had to put the story down on paper.”However, the publisher admitted that the climate for publishing in this arena has become more difficult with coedition sales to the US becoming harder and chains difficult to access in the UK market.
Sales and marketing manager Gail Lynch said: “It is very hard to get support from the chains at head office although we have done very well at store level with titles like We Are All Born Free, often as a result of members of the public asking for these books.”
The presentation of the award at Seven Stories in Newcastle also marked the launch of Takeshita Demons by Cristy Burne (Frances Lincoln) which won the inaugural award last year.
Fen Coles of Letterbox Library, which sells multicultural books, said: “The industry needs this award because it highlights what is missing in the publishing industry. Publishers need to commission a wider range of authors and illustrators from more diverse backgrounds and to publish more books that reflect the society we are living in.”