The myriad steep cast-iron stairs of London Olympia would be a struggle for an old fella’ not used to the Welsh hills. They are everywhere. The London Book Fair occupies the whole building, level upon level; stands and banners, bright lights and the kind of ambient noise and hurlyburly that makes it difficult to detect where one conversation begins and another ends. I had my complimentary invitation somewhere near the bottom of my bag, my simple pitch in my head (books about Black people are not the same as books for Black people), and a vague knowledge of, I think, two people in the building. First day at primary school. In central London. In March.

The concept behind Margin to Margin Books had resulted in a shortlisting for the 2026 London Book Fair Trailblazers Award. On the 12th of March, 1:45pm on the main stage, alongside real proper book people, I collected a very fancy certificate. The ceremony lasted about twenty minutes. Quite exciting. The rest of the day was footwork; stand to stand, conversation to conversation, telling anyone who’d hold still for a moment what M2M Books is actually about; why I’m so committed to the project; what we publish; who we publish for; not a difficult concept to grasp. I spent all day this way – planting seeds. 

I got back home to Wales on the Friday. The same day the submission window for the Margin to Margin Anthology closed.

Writing rejection emails is an aspect of publishing that nothing can prepare you for. The writers on the receiving end of these negative notes trusted us with their work; no small matter. Some submissions needed more time and more work. Some weren’t the right fit for this anthology. I’m not going to give more explanation; editorial decisions require no public justification. What I’ll say is this: the writers we couldn’t include this time are not staring at a closed door. Hopefully, just a deferred conversation.

The writers we accepted have set the foundations of the anthology. Twenty-eight contributors. The beginning and the end are locked. The middle is still finding its order; there’s a moment in curating any collection when it stops being a list and starts being a sequence, when you can feel the shape of the book taking form beneath the individual pieces. We’re close to that moment. Not there yet. Close.

Forms. Each new publishing project triggers an avalanche of required paperwork. Contracts; grant applications; budget lines; schedules; ISBNs. Getting a book into the real world is less like releasing something and more like a detailed application for permission to exist. I say this without complaint (mostly). The infrastructure exists for good reason. But the pathway between a poem arriving in my inbox and that poem existing in a book a writer can hold in their hands, is longer and more administrative than most people would imagine. We’ve completed the forms. That bit’s done.

Last Saturday, I was back in Aberystwyth, planting seeds at the National Library of Wales, for a Black Literature Panel organised by Kumbu Kumbu. On the panel with me: Alex Wharton, Children’s Laureate Wales 2023–25; and Jade E. Bradford, a writer from Barry, whose work has been recognised by Literature Wales and the Black British Book Festival. Linking up with established Black writers is a special treat. I spend most of my time discussing the range of communities M2M publishes for. This event was all about mine. We spoke for ninety minutes about Black Welsh writing; about what it means to write for our community rather than for an imagined outside observer; about Welshness, language and belonging. These conversations continued long after the mics went off. Valuable exchanges, alone worth turning up for.

Easter this week. The pace shifts. But there are plenty of tasks still to finalise, two children’s books, a second anthology to produce, a novel set in south Wales in the pipeline. The work won’t stop. 

Whether the seeds I planted at Olympia and the National Library will take root, who knows. At home, the tomato and lettuce seeds are sprouting. Unfortunately, I’m yet to spot any shoots from the sweet peas. This is how it goes.