Words of Colour Productions is a creative communications agency that promotes, facilitates and develops writers of colour – of all genres, collaborates with arts and creative industries to increase cultural inclusion, and creates multi-platform and multi-media projects to reshape the single narrative misrepresenting culturally diverse communities.
Founded in 2006 as a community initiative and incorporated as a social enterprise in 2011, Words of Colour has been part of many significant industry facing and impactful initiatives, including research and partnerships, which have championed inclusion and writers of colour at all stages of their career.
Mahsuda Snaith, winner of the SI Leeds Literary Prize 2014 and Bristol Short Story Prize 2014, and The Observer New Face of Fiction 2017, said:
Coming runner-up in the Words of Colour Short Story Competition 2008 helped me greatly in my development as a writer. The practical group discussion we had about writing and, in particular, writing by people of colour and the difficulties that can sometimes come with this, was both illuminating and helpful. To then be able to meet an agent and ask questions was another highlight. It’s incredibly important to have organisations like Words of Colour to champion and discover writing talent that might otherwise be ignored as well as create a network of diverse writers that can all learn from each other.
Words of Colour relaunches with a new brand identity and strapline at Bush Theatre, London.
Launches the initial survey findings of The Black Love Project to a capacity audience at Bush Theatre.
Launches the Synergi Collaborative Centre, with the University of Manchester and Queen Mary University of London, at Rivington Place, London.
2017Leading human rights law firm Birnberg Peirce & Partners appoints Words of Colour as its media liaison lead.
2016Curates a literature and wellbeing programme at the Bloomsbury Festival, featuring writers Alex Wheatle MBE, Jackee Holder and Irenosen Okojie, in partnership with Time to Change.
2013Joy Francis assists the Media Diversity Institute to launch the world's first MA in Diversity and the Media at Westminster University and develops a core module.
2011Words of Colour commissioned by Hackney Museum to develop a three-year community journalism and newspaper publishing programme for the acclaimed Mapping the Change programme, which recorded the changes to East London people’s lives in the run up to the London 2012 Games. Words of Colour was identified as one of the project’s most successful programmes in the University of Leicester’s Museum Studies Department final evalution. Read the report here.
2010
Winner: Ola Awonubi (Winner, Wasafari Writing Prize).
Runner Up: Mahsuda Snaith (Winner, Bristol Short Story Prize and SI Leeds Literary Prize).