Meet The Reader: Staff Spotlight with Tavia Panton

My role at The Reader is Children and Young Persons Project Lead, encouraging a love for reading in the early years through our First Page project. My background is in arts education; throughout my career I support creative learning for wellbeing and resilience. I have just completed a Masters degree by research exploring black joy in British novels. I am also a multi-disciplinary artist; writing, painting and speaking about nature, race, roots, and relationships.

Reading for black joy is a powerful counter-narrative action, which can resist the tendency to fixate on the transatlantic slave economy when considering black history and culture. I want to create a group where black Britons are well represented in the stories we read, contributing to The Reader's desire to encourage all groups to be welcoming spaces.

I am looking forward to reading a diverse range of texts within black British literature, including local contributions to the genre. I want to spotlight new, progressive writings that contain messages of hope. This could be anything from the poem Carnival by Vanessa Kisuule, to the novel Manny and the Baby by Varaidzo.