Posted on by M2M Books

Publishing Beyond the Diversity Calendar

Marginalised writers are customarily employed as a form of seasonal window dressing. There is a month for every identity, a short period when a few representative authors are invited to perform their trauma for a curious public; a fleeting moment when the publishing industry undertakes a desperate bit of box-ticking and then reverts to its default settings. This is not a picture of positive publishing; this is opportunistic virtue signalling.

M2M Books has no interest in tokenistic diversity calendars; not interested in marginalised communities being offered up to the mainstream as seasonal decoration; consigned to the loft for the majority of the year; writers finding themselves exactly where they were before the brief flurry of activity; out of sight, out of mind; exposed and unsupported; publishers immediately racing on to the next marketable trend.

And in these occasional periods when publishing houses appeal for diverse manuscripts, they are often looking for a specific kind of trauma narrative composed for the Hay Festival demographic. They want to publish the Racism or Homophobia 101 explanation; a comfortable self-serving product drafted for the gaze of the well-meaning liberal. Literature of misery and existential justification.

So, while the industry awaits the next political trend to dictate what is marketable, our mission remains fixed. M2M Books is committed to curating robust literary infrastructure for a spectrum of marginalised audiences – an Internal Library that will remain available and active 365, year after year after year.

This is why our submission window does not close when a heritage month ends. Our submission window remains permanently open; the urgent need for the literary fortification of under-represented communities does not have time for an off-season.

What Submissions are M2M Books Looking For?

We prioritise the complex, the authentic, and the internal; literature that will resonate with marginalised communities, rather than books that beg the world for permission and understanding. We want to publish fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that offer solace, resilience, and intellectual armour to our various marginalised communities in an increasingly hostile political climate.

Sanctuary for the Serious Writer

If you are a writer who is tired of being treated like a seasonal guest, a case study, spokesperson, or representative of your community, M2M Books is your sanctuary. We are not looking for your anger or suffering to be used as an educational tool for others. We are looking for your literary craft to be deployed as fortification for your own community.

This important work continues. We are building something permanent. We are building for ourselves.

Gareth James – Chief Reader

Link to Submission Info
Posted on by M2M Books

The Trap of the Artistic Face-Off

A high-contrast, black and white photograph of a densely packed bookshelf. The rows of books are layered with a mix of leaning and stacked spines, creating a textured, monolithic wall of literature. The top shelves fall into deep, dramatic shadows, evoking a sense of an endless "Internal Library."

Speaking to Our Own Communities in an Increasingly Hostile World

It is not the job of Black writers to explain to white people that racism is wrong. If, after 500 years, whiteness hasn’t yet grasped the irrational evils of their racial bias and discrimination, there is little we can say that is going to change a thing. Racism is a conversation whiteness needs to have with itself. It’s not our job to debate racism and not a good use of our time – especially right now.

Right now, not just for People of Colour, but for those of almost all marginalised communities, the political horizon appears increasingly dark and indifferent, if not downright bleak. So, rather than moaning and groaning to people who do not care, our time as marginalised artists is better employed equipping our communities with art that will provide the armour, the uplift, and the resilience required to survive and thrive in increasingly right-wing societies.

I completely understand the impulse for the marginalised artist to turn outward: to face off against injustice, to shout into the storm, and to rage at the architects of systemic failure. But we should be honest about the nature of protest in art. Raw anger is a valid response, of course it is, but it is rarely an original one. When we create solely out of anger, we allow other people’s intolerance to dictate the shape of our art. In a literary sense, fury follows predictable patterns; it is reactive, defined entirely by the injustice it opposes.

Worse, this artistic rage vainly addresses a mainstream society that isn’t listening or paying attention, when we could and should be speaking directly to our own communities – under-pressure communities who are desperate for both intellectual reassurance and artistic solace.

So, rather than using the manuscript as an ineffective shield against injustice, we must employ books and The Arts more broadly as powerful tools with which to fortify the internal structures of our own beleaguered communities.

M2M Books is intent on building “Internal Libraries” for marginalised communities. To become a curator of narratives that act as psychological and intellectual fortifications; fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that provides much-needed support and motivation at a time when external politics offer little in the way of remedy.

Because these books must fortify a community, the literary craft must be uncompromising. For example, M2M Books is not interested in a Racism 101 narrative aimed at a mainstream audience, but in a sophisticated internal dialogue that will resonate within the community. Any marginalised community under pressure needs a sturdy artistic structure, and weak, reactive writing cannot provide that.

Building this kind of literary infrastructure cannot be rushed. It takes time to move past the immediate scream of protest and into the important work of community fortification. This is why the M2M Books’ submission window remains permanently open for works that focus on the authentic and complex dialogue of a marginalised community.

If you are ready to start contributing to an internal library for your own marginalised community, we are ready to read your work.


Gareth James – Chief Reader