HACHETTE UK HOSTS CHANGING THE STORY FESTIVAL

Hachette UK has relaunched its annual internal staff event ‘Changing the Story Day’ to become ‘Changing the Story Festival’, which will take place this year on 15^th June.

Created in line with Hachette UK’s ‘Changing the Story’ initiative, the festival will offer its staff the opportunity to celebrate and challenge both past and present achievements in diversity and inclusion and how to take active accountability with a day of discussion, panels, speeches and performances.

The line-up will feature a collection of Hachette UK authors, who will explore a range of topics, including a live performance from theatre and TV actor Paterson Joseph, based on his debut novel The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho (Dialogue Books) and a ‘Diversity and Confusion’ workshop, led by the award-winning diversity and inclusion consultancy ‘The Unmistakeables’, who will share insights backed by data on how to be more inclusive on a day-to-day basis in the workplace.

 

Paterson Joseph

 

Other festival events include a ‘Past: Recovering Lost Histories’ panel, in which Chair Leah Davis and panellists Paula Akpan, Claire Hollis and Kit Heyam will explore preserving cultural heritage and developing a sense of cultural identity and belonging. A ‘Present: Writing Diverse Modern Stories’ panel will see Dean Atta, Dr Nighat Arif, and Robert Hamberger in conversation with chair Jendella Benson, discussing the importance of giving a platform to underrepresented communities.

Changing the Story Patrons Nick Davies, Managing Director at John Murray Press, and Sharmaine Lovegrove, Managing Director at Dialogue Books, and Hachette UK’s Group CEO, David Shelley,  will be in conversation with Nels Abbey, author and co-founder of the Black Writer’s Guild. The panel will reflect, analyse, and share their views on what diversity and inclusion looked like in the past, what it looks like now, and what it may look like in the future of the publishing industry.

Kim Kidd, Diversity and Inclusion Manager at Hachette UK, said: “We’re really excited to be relaunching our Changing the Story Festival and we’re so pleased to be working with a collection of our incredible authors to curate a day of active engagement for our workforce. We want to reflect on our past and present initiatives around diversity and inclusion and explore how we can do more going forward. Our aim is to ensure that our Changing the Story goals are at the heart of all that we do, and to work towards creating a truly inclusive and diverse workplace for all.”

For information, please contact Rachael Cannon ([email protected]).

 

About Hachette UK:

Our mission at Hachette UK is to make it easy for everyone to discover new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment and opportunity.

We are one of the UK’s largest publishing groups, with 12 autonomous divisions and over 50 imprints with a rich and diverse history. We are the market leader in e-books and publish a range of bestsellers in audio format, the fastest-growing part of our business.

We publish thousands of new books across the group every year and our authors include Michael Connelly, Alice Oseman, John Grisham, Val McDermid, Stephen King, Stieg Larsson, Nelson Mandela, Stephenie Meyer, Ian Rankin, J.K. Rowling and Malala Yousafzai.

Our award-winning adult publishing divisions are Little, Brown, Orion, John Murray Press, Dialogue Books, Hodder & Stoughton, Headline, Quercus, Bookouture and Octopus. Hachette Children’s Group publishes a diverse range of books for children of all ages and Hodder Education is a market leader in resources for both primary and secondary schools. In 2022, we welcomed Paperblanks, the second-largest premium stationery brand in the world, to our group.

We have offices around the UK, including our headquarters in London and the Hely Hutchinson Centre (HHC) for distribution in Didcot. We have subsidiaries in several other regions, including Australia, India, Ireland, Jamaica and New Zealand.

 

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