Launching a new weekly Black Joy Shared Reading group in Liverpool this month

We're celebrating joy in black British literature and launching Shared Reading: Black Joy in Liverpool from Monday 14 October. 

This new group will take place every Monday, 6pm - 7pm at our home in the renovated Grade II listed Mansion House at Calderstones Park. 

The group will be led by Tavia Panton, The Reader’s Liverpool-based Children and Young Persons Project Lead, who says: “This Black Joy Shared Reading group has been created for people who are interested in reading positive stories that authentically depict black Britishness.  

“We will delve into tales of hope, which, instead of centralising our pain, focus on our recovery and our experiences of beauty. From John Agard to Varaidzo, we intend to spotlight the black joy in British literature.” 

Each week, we bring people together at 424 Shared Reading groups across the UK, including 118 in the Liverpool City Region. These groups are free, and for everyone.

At Shared Reading groups, a trained Reader Leader selects stories and poems to read aloud together. Everyone is welcome to share how the words make them feel, as well as their thoughts, ideas and memories. There is no pressure to talk or read aloud.

Each person experiences what is read in their own way, but the shared language found in literature can help individuals to understand themselves – and others – better.  

This year 1186 group members (68%) responded to The Reader’s Feedback Week survey with 95% saying Shared Reading lifts their mood. 

Tavia added: “Joy has been a long-standing tool to help black people resist and dismantle the master's narrative. Black joy can mean reclaiming and celebrating our authentic selves, and self-determining how we reimagine the heritage that was stolen from us.” 

New York writer Kleaver Cruz started the Black Joy Project in 2015, a digital and real-world movement highlighting the message that “black joy is an act of resistance”. 

An anthology of 28 essays called Black Joy was subsequently published by Penguin in 2021 about what it means to be black in Britain. Described “as a true celebration of black British culture in all its glory”, it was edited by former gal-dem editor Charlie Brinkhurt-Cuff and award-nominated journalist Timi Sotire. Contributors included politician Diane Abbott. 

Shared Reading: Black Joy starts on 14 October and will run every Monday, 6pm – 7pm at The Mansion House, Calderstones Park, L18 3JB. Everyone is welcome. FREE admission, just drop-in on the day. Find out more here.