Hachette Thrive to host Debut Author Event

Hachette UK’s Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic employee network, THRIVE, has announced a panel event to showcase some of the most hotly anticipated and highly acclaimed new voices in writing, to be hosted by Sarah Shaffi at 7pm on 19^th May.

The virtual event, which will be hosted on Zoom, will consist of a panel of three debut authors – Dawnie Walton, Rahul Raina and Mateo Askaripour – in conversation with Sarah Shaffi, who regularly chairs author events and is co-chair of BAME in Publishing, a networking group for people of colour in publishing.

The panel will discuss their debut commercial books – The Final Revival of Opal & Nev (Quercus), How to Kidnap the Rich (Little, Brown) and Black Buck (John Murray Press) – each of which features highly complex characters striving for success, whether this be within music, corporate sales or Indian reality television. THRIVE is hoping to run a series of these events annually to showcase debut authors and amplify books by writers of colour.

Ebyan Egal and Joelyn Esdelle, co-chairs of THRIVE, said: “We’re thrilled to be hosting the THRIVE Debut event with Dawnie, Rahul and Mateo – three of the most exciting and talked about debut authors of 2021 – and we’re looking forward to discussing their books. Sarah Shaffi was the perfect chair for this talk due to her ongoing work in amplifying the works of new and diverse voices.”

Sarah Shaffi, literary journalist and editor, said: “Dawnie, Rahul and Mateo have written three incredible, must-read books and I can’t wait to introduce audiences to their work. I know already that everyone watching will want to hear these three authors talk about their books for hours.”

Tickets are free and you can register for the event here.