Meet the BookTrust Represents Community!

This month FAB Prize Winner Debbie Antwi reflects on her first year in the Kidlit community and the BTR Creator Spotlight is on self-published author, Pamela Aculey.

by Debbie Antwi

Happy New Year! I’m Debbie Antwi and I was the first-place text winner for the FAB Prize 2024 (woo!). I’m always surprised at how quickly a year can fly by. One minute you’re hiding in the very bougie Faber and Faber toilets overwhelmed with it all, next minute you’re FAB Alumni, sharing advice with the 2025 shortlistees on a Zoom call! 

Full transparency, I entered the FAB competition with no expectations and even less knowledge about the book world. I’ve always loved books but had only decided to take my writing seriously again in 2023 after a very long hiatus. So alongside being incredibly grateful to have won the esteemed prize itself, I’m also very thankful to have won the chance to be supported by BookTrust, namely the lovely Emma Zipfel and Emily Drabble! This year I’ve had access to quite a few opportunities that have made 8‑year-old Debbie who dreamt of being a ​“writer” very happy. 

We started on a high with a virtual school visit where I shadowed Ramzee, who is just as funny off the paper as he is on it. He talked about The Cheat Book Vol 1, answered questions from his very curious readers and taught us how to draw our own comic characters! And fast forward to the most recent event, an invite to the Storymix book launch for The Other Father Christmas. This was in the cutest bookshop (Moon Lane Books) with an appearance from Father Christmas himself and was such wholesome fun. 

A trip to Cheltenham Literary Festival

But the absolute highlight of my time with the Book Trust was the weekend trip to Cheltenham Literary Festival which was literally 10/10 (and I’m not just saying that because it was free!). Our itinerary was packed with engaging events ranging from picture books to YA that reminded me why I love children’s literature so much. A special shout out to Jeffery Boakye’s Music Making Adventures and The Big Comic Finale, which both had me cackling! 

Not only did I get to meet and explore the festival alongside a group of amazing debut authors, but we were incredibly lucky to be able to have dinners and lunches with the super talented Dapo Adeola, Jennifer Killick, Tola Okogwu and Athena Kugblenu. They answered every question, no matter how silly, and shared their wisdom and honest advice. I initially thought I’d feel really out of place, having so little knowledge but honestly it was the complete opposite. Being able to network with such an inspirational group and learn from their experiences helped me realise my own experiences and feelings so far were not unique, just regular programming, and how important it is to believe in your story. 

Winning the FAB prize

Winning 1st prize has been a surreal experience, and being given the opportunity to reflect on it and share my experiences with the 2025 shortlistees has also been pretty cool. At the 2024 FAB ceremony I’d arrived fashionably late, without a plus-one and knew absolutely nobody there. I was a bag of nerves which really stopped me taking full advantage of all the amazing experience and knowledge in the room. I shared this with both Emma and Ama, and for the 2025 FAB awards I was invited to help to create a space for shortlistees to e‑meet some friendly faces and ask questions ahead of the ceremony, which is something I felt honoured to do together with Aisha, first place illustrator for FAB 2024 and Mariesa, who won the text prize in 2020. Aside from suggesting they didn’t hide out in the loos, I was able to honestly share that even just being initially shortlisted gave me a massive boost of confidence and should encourage them all to keep creating! It’s been an amazing year, and I’d like to say a huge thank you to the FAB Prize and Ama Badu for believing in my writing and BookTrust and Emma and Emily for helping me to start building a book community!