life of a street dancer

It's Black History Month and it is freezing cold. I ordered my fur coat ASAP. I was so lucky that my cousin hooked me up with a weekend packed with The Hate U Give. I read THUG last year. I remember seeing it in Waterstones and picking it up because I saw a picture of a black girl on the cover. When I read the title I was like, didn't Tupac say this? I then read the blurb and literally was in shock that this Black Lives Matter book was in Waterstones ( as it should be but it's not something you see every day). I sat down and read it up to Khalil and the policeman. I couldn't get over the fact that this book had been published by a big publishing house. I brought it straight away and finished reading it the next day. It is one of my favourite books so when Toyin told me she was working the BFI London Fim Festival and THUG was going to be shown and did I want to see an exclusive screening, all I could say was Girl!!!!!! Then she upped it by getting me tickets to hear Ang...

Happy Monday guys! Good day so far. I won £20 for creating the best collage of pictures from work AND my big plan to surprise someone worked out amazingly. A* to me! A few blogs ago I mentioned meeting publishers but I didn't go into detail...well when I was working at a bar, it was closing time and there were 2 people left at a table. I was talking to one of the regulars about my book and the 2 people were listening. They asked me if I was a writer and I said yes. They said they worked in publishing. I asked for who and they said....wait for it....HARPER FLIPPING COLLINS! So obviously cleaning up wasn't important anymore and I spent about 30 min talking to them about my book and they were lovely. We swapped email addresses and they told me to get my agent to contact their head of children's department. I did think that they wouldn't remember me the next day but they did and my agent got in touch. Turns out the head of kids was leaving for a holiday before Christmas,...

I'm known by different names to different people. In the kitchen, my dad gave me a history lesson on my names. ABIOLA - given to me by my mum, it means wealth be on to her. Which I thought was v typical of my mum to think off. SERIFAT - given to me by my dad and is my Muslim name, even though I'm a born again Christian. My dad is Muslim, although he doesn't really know why and half my family follow Islam as well. I have a vague memory of it being Ramadan and this was my obsession with the Pokemon game phase on Game Boy. My dad came home and was well chuffed that I had fasted with him. In truth I had forgot that I had agreed to but I had been playing Pokemon all day and forgot to eat. I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth. So every Ramadan as a kid, I had to fast. I was named after a girl from my dad's school who helped him financially throughout secondary school because my dad was a poor orphan. TEMI-TOPE - given to me by my Auntie Sade who is my Nan's s...