The Riff Raff Story

I started The Riff Raff in 2017 with fellow debut author, Rosy Edwards, after publishing my debut book – Miss Adventures.

Once my book was out in the world, I realised that, unless you’re one of the lucky ones, you don’t receive much fanfare at all, despite it feeling like the biggest achievement of your life.

Also, when I was writing my debut, I would go and see my literary heroes speak at the Royal Festival Hall or other such intimidating venues, and sitting where I was sitting, it felt like achieving my ambitions was an insurmountable goal.

For these reasons, Rosy and I wanted to create a welcoming community where debut authors could come to be celebrated, and aspiring authors could mingle with people just like them who had only recently been published.

The idea was that the debut author could regale us with their journey to publication, offering tips and insights on how to do it. Then they would read their work to a crowd of fellow writers and book enthusiasts. Finally, we would have a Q&A session where the audience could ask burning questions of the authors to get the answers that they needed.

It went pretty well….

From March 2017 to March 2020, we held this event monthly at the Effra Social in Brixton.

During that time, we hosted 28 events featuring 140 debut authors, including the likes of Candice Carty Williams (Queenie), Jenny Zhang (Sour Heart), Rowan Hisayo Buchanan (Harmless Like You), Ashley Hickson-Lovence (The 392), Emma Glass (Peach), Sharlene Teo (Ponti), Sophie Mackintosh (The Water Cure), Justin Myers (The Last Romeo) and more.

We created 81 episodes of The Riff Raff Podcast, which by the time we ended the podcast in 2020, had received more than 50,000 listens in over 35 countries, in places as unexpected as The Philippines, Cuba, Nepal and Pakistan. We had some truly excellent guests on the show, and learnt so much about writing and the publishing industry. Examples of our guests include Tara Westover (Educated), Kit de Waal (My Name is Leon), Alex Michaelides (The Silent Patient), Sara Collins (The Confessions of Frannie Langton) and Michael Donkor (Hold). You can still listen to the podcast – just click here.

We also ran a successful mentoring scheme and manuscript shakedown service where we paired aspiring writers with authors within their genre. The author would work either on an extract of a manuscript, or directly with their mentee for a period of 3-12 months, helping them to shape their manuscript and eventually to submit it for publication. More than 10 participants went on to be published.

All Good Things Come to an End…

After a year of running the event solo after Rosy moved on, I decided to call time on The Riff Raff in 2020 when the pandemic hit.

It was without a doubt one of the best experiences of my life, and a real education from some of the best writers in the game. I loved every minute of curating the events, interviewing authors, bringing insight and support to aspiring writers, and creating a fun and inclusive space where people could come together to nerd out about writing.