Crafting a career: Shani Akilah on 'For Such a Time As This'

A year ago author Shani Akilah, celebrated the launch of her debut short story collection For Such a Time As This. 

For Such a Time As This is a phrase which is often attached to the Biblical Book of Esther. It’s used to convey the idea that people are placed into specific circumstances in order to perform certain duties or opportunities. Despite your circumstances, God’s timing is never wrong.  

In Akilah’s collection we see how divine timing can work in the favour of friendships, work and relationships all set in London in your 20s.  

How has life changed for you, since writing a book?

I'm like a semi-public figure now, I guess. It's really cool when I meet people and they've read my book and they've loved it. It's been amazing having so much support from not just friends and family, but just like the reading community, the Bookstagram community and having been flown out to speak as an author. That was incredible. 

I'm also going to be in Jamaica this month doing a few book events. I think last year was also very overwhelming. It was amazing, but also very overwhelming. I did a very extensive book tour and keeping on top with adulting was was quite a lot.

You've spoken previously about how much harder it can be for short stories to be published in the UK. What are some things you've learnt from the process? 

I think one of the main things I've learned is to stick to your vision. So I had a vision for this book being an interconnected short story collection about black, love, friendship, community, and that was like the vision from the very beginning. I didn't want it to be a novel. 

It's important to stick to your vision, and remember that there will be an agent, there will be a publisher who believes in your vision, buys into your vision, and won’t deviate from that because of what the industry standards have been. 

How has writing a collection of short stories changed your perspective on what you used to feel were limitations on your creativity? 

I remember one of my mentors said to me, “how do you eat a frog?” And it's basically the idea that you know you write a novel, a short story collection, essay, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, word by word. So looking back, it's amazing that I actually have achieved that from going from just what was one short story to a collection of 13. It's been really amazing just to see how you can bring things into existence out of nothing. 

I'm a writer who often writes from vibes, so one of the things that I've learned in terms of limitations of my creativity is just giving myself the space and the time to allow the story to grow, to develop and how ideas can come to you.

How do you get out of a creative rut? 

I started doing morning pages probably about two or three years ago. Essentially it's writing three pages of longhand stream of consciousness. 

There was a period of time when I was doing half an hour of writing, typing on my laptop. I've changed that recently, and I just do 10 minutes, but I find that really does help to unblock me creatively onto the page so I can focus on fiction writing. 

I also do think it's important to enjoy life. So there was a period of time when I was editing For Such a Time As This and I was really struggling with some of my edits and I just went out and met with my friends. 

So I think doing things that bring you joy has been one of the things I've realised does help to keep me creatively tapped in and to be a source of inspiration as well.

I know that one of the stories in the collection was based on your own experiences in the workplace. Have you had people reach out to you about that particular story? 

Yes, I've had a number of people reach out to me about that story, and it's so interesting because it was a very specific experience to me, probably about 80% true. And I think of all the stories that I've written, it's the most personal, the most inspired by real life. 

I had a lot of Black women reach out to me about similar experiences throughout their career. So that was just really encouraging and humbling to me, just to see how writing about something so personal could be an avenue for other people to feel seen. I also remember one particular woman reached out to me and said that she didn't realise that my book and that story in particular was an answer to a prayer she didn't realise she needed, so that was just incredible.

What was your favourite story to write and who was your favourite character?

Would you ever consider expanding anyone's journey? 

So I really enjoyed writing ‘A Short Trip to Tesco’ that was inspired by, like a moment I had in Tesco when I actually wrote that story in the car park of Tesco Extra in Woolwich. So I really enjoyed writing that, and I did a lot of my edits in Mexico, overlooking the ocean, which was really, really incredible. 

My favorite character has to be Reggie, which was inspired by my Jamaican grandfather, Reggie, who passed away a few years ago. I wrote that story sat on his veranda in three days. It was a really special time, because it was the last time I saw him before he passed away and I was able to spend two weeks with him. 

So, I feel like that story, a lot of readers have really loved that story and have connected with it in a really wonderful way, just to honour my granddad's legacy and his character. 

If you had to fan cast your work, who's playing your leads? 

I'm terrible with people's names. But in terms of male actors, it would be great to have Aaron Pierre, John Boyega. In terms of female leads, Leticia Wright, it'd be great to have her, big up my Guyanese sis. 

If you could work on another genre of fiction, what space would you like to enter? 

I really want to write some kind of fantasy, magical realism in my career, so I'm really excited to do that. I have some ideas already, but I probably won't write those for like, a good few years. Also historical fiction. I think that will probably come more quickly than Sci-Fi, magical realism, but I have a lot of ideas, and I really love kind of inter-generational narratives, so it'd be really great to explore that through a historical fiction lens.

What are you reading at the moment/what's on your TBR?

Oh, it's like a never ending TBR.

I am currently reading A Broken People's Playlist by Chimeka Garricks, it's a short story collection. I love it. It's just such beautiful writing. Big up the short story writers. Big up the Black male short story writers, as well. He's got a few stories that are written in the second person, and I absolutely love that form.

For Such a Time As This is available to purchase in paperback now.