Ep 1: Conversation with Lela Goldsmith

Hello ladies and gents boys and girls and welcome to the first episode of the diverse books podcast. Today I've got Leyla Guldsmith here with me, Leyla is the writer of the book, Phoebe's Blessing and she's also the founder of the Fatima and Kadija Memorial Library in Mombasa, Kenya. So Leyla how are you doing today? I'm doing great, thank you for asking how are you? I'm doing great, thank you. Leyla tell us a bit about yourself. You grew up in Kenya I believe. Yeah so I grew up in in I was actually born in a little island, a little town in an island called Lamu which is where Bebe's Blessing is set in. So I was born in Lamu to an American father in a Kenyan mother and I spent most of my childhood in Kenya with a brief stint back in the US and yeah I spent my childhood in Kenya, I lived a long time in the US which is my paternal homeland and now I'm here in the UK, yeah I've been here for the last couple of years. Right, very interesting. So how exactly did you get into writing? So I've always been a big fan of books and even growing up my favorite pastime was always reading. I absolutely loved spending time reading more than any other activity and so I had a deep appreciation for books and I had a deep appreciation for writers and I never really saw myself as an author because I just revered authors so much that I thought only special people could write. Anyway so after a while after I started the Fatman Hadija Memorial Library I was looking for books that featured characters from where I grew up in Kenya where I was born in Kenya and I couldn't find anything. This is the coastal part of Kenya and I remember one day it was we were in a cafe just having lunch with a friend and I was lamenting the fact that you know I couldn't find any books based with stories of characters from the coast of Kenya and yeah the lady I was having lunch was just casually remarked well why don't you write one and I had never considered that before I really truly had you never considered that before and I thought what me she's like yeah you're supposed to write the book that you wish you you could read and that planted a seed and that basically from there on I just kind of sat with it and toyed her own with the idea of writing a book the book that I wanted to read and the book that I wanted to put on my own bookshelf on the library's bookshelf and yeah that took hold and after some time I just started writing bits and pieces and yeah here I am today. Here you are today the author of Bebe's Blessing I read the book I really liked it I found the the message in it very profound and it was very heartwarming how how Bebe was like with everything that went wrong she was always like great thanks god thank god for this blessing and the and the lesson that the little girl learned I really really loved it what did that story mean to you so the story was inspired by my own childhood my grandmother used to make mofa which is what the story is about so she used to make mofa and I used to help her sell it me together with my cousins we used to sell it and so it was very much inspired by my own childhood and Bebe who has been deceased for the last I think almost 18 years now has always been one of if not my favorite people growing up and to this day she remains to be one of my favorite so I really really wanted the world to know my grandmother the way I knew her because she was such a really really kind person and so yeah that I wrote I started writing a story based on that on my experiences selling mofa helping my Bebe sell mofa obviously with the help of a very gifted editor and my own publisher we kind of tweaked the story a little bit to you know make it what it is today but yeah it's very much based on my my own childhood and I just really like the idea of always looking at the hidden blessings in every challenge or every situation and that's I really wanted to explore that that's that's very profound and sweet I want to know what kinds of books you read growing up did you read any books at all that that you saw yourself in as you know a person of your national identity as a Muslim did you grow up seeing yourself in the books you read so in short no not really but mine is a little bit more complicated because I am by racial I've got more than one identity so I have like different belongings right with with my mother being Kenyan my father being American so basically I grew up reading a lot of like the secret seven a huge huge favorite of mine secret seven famous five I think I've read the hardy boys in Nancy Drew as well I was really really intrigued by you know all these kids who had quite a lot of fun cracking these mysteries and going on adventures and whatever but I always thought to myself like hmm I mean we have a lot of fun but how come we you know how come our stories haven't been told yet you know the stories from from the Kenyan coast how come they haven't been really told yet and it's something I think that was always like running at the back of my mind but never at the forefront and I think it's only after I grew up and then I saw more and more books at libraries and I started you know I had my own kids and I started looking for books that that featured story from my own culture and my own childhood did I really realize that oh wow there really is a huge gap and there's nothing I can show that's nothing out there that I can show my kids that I can root to my kids that talks of my own childhood and it's just it's not right so yeah that's been I went on and wrote my own book but I hope that answers your question oh it does thank you um I'd also like to hear about the you started the Fateman Courage Memorial Library so what was your what was your goal in setting that up what was your reason so the Fateman Hadija Memorial Library is a community library based in Mombasa Kenya my husband and I run a community community based organization in Mombasa and most of what we do is really um rallying people you know rallying the community to help each other so a lot of the work was in helping like local orphanages with food and logistical support establishing a food bank so it was a lot of like you know Hayrat kind of projects but Mombasa and the coast region in general in Kenya tends to rank quite low in literacy compared to the rest of the country and um I would dare I say the rest of the world and so I always thought you know like for me like the fundamental the basics goes down to how well a child can read and how well a child can um process the world around her or around him but uh we didn't I didn't really see a library that really catered to our you know our local community so I thought you know if reading matter if reading made such a difference in my own life and it may continue to make such a difference in the lives of so many uh children then why don't we have one um and so I just put out a call to the community and I said I really think that we need a library um that serves the local community and uh I'll have the live everyone uh he did the call And the community came together and it just started off like we just rented an apartment in town To bedroom apartment and converted that into a library and then someone donated, you know like shelves and install shelves there and People came and donated books and we sent books from the UK to Kenya Someone else donated chairs in a table and another person donated, you know to paint the walls So it's really very much a community driven project and the most the thing that are most proud of is that that is very much community driven so We're not looking for as much as we're very appreciative of people Who come in and help us people who are outside to come in and help us the fact that it's um a project that was Built together by the community members is still sustained by the community is very much speaks to the power of Just people taking a community taking matters into their own hands And really establishing something powerful Because not only is it sustainable, but It also is very much empowering That's really cool. That's absolutely very powerful the community spirit. I also wanted to um Ask about your general writing process. So When you're writing babies blessing and anything else you've written or writing or have been writing since then how exactly does it go So with babies blessing Like I said, it just started off with an idea and The biggest hurdle for me I would say was to overcome that mentality that Who am I to write a book? You know, I'm nothing special But um, I did enroll in Naima Roberts's um, she had A boot camp like Muslim, my writers boot camp or something like that. I can't remember what the exact title is So there's a time she basically gathered like a Muslim Female writers around the world um, and I think it was like a weekend long event and just joined online And I got to see so many different women who wrote like in different genres And it really did give me a sense of well, if they can do it then I can do it too Because you know it when you look at books the majority of the books are not written by So-called minorities or People of color The majority of books are written by your average, you know standard white person who is more or less Quite well established and so that's why I thought, you know, who am I to to Do this work to write but when I saw all these women who wrote different books, um I was really really inspired and then I enrolled in one of our other masterclass boot camps And that really gave me a push to kind of like formulate this idea in my head down on paper and just create What I would call like a structure a rough structure of the book And then I submitted the story to roqueous bookshelf and They accepted it quite fast as a matter of fact and yeah, just working with Asma the owner of roqueous bookshelf and the editor they really really helped me kind of really fashion the book and Create something really beautiful out of this idea. So I had that idea, but There was also these wonderful women along the way who really helped me Create the book into what it is today I am writing other books as well I'm in the process. They haven't been released yet But yeah, I think it's just that. It's just starting off with an idea putting the idea to paper and then tweaking it along the way and getting feedback from people that you really trust in the I think trust is a major one. Yeah, that you really trust and look up to And yeah, just tweaking it as you go so In building your library in um in canya did you also Want to inspire other little boys and girls growing up there to write their stories and to You know put their voices out there Oh, yeah, absolutely absolutely um so whenever we use to Buy books from the UK and send them to canya As much as it was always very exciting There's something that's always like eating away at me like we're sending Books there, but there are no books that really actually represent The lives of the children that we are serving and Part of the work that I do also is to really encourage local authorship Um, and so I'd really like you know for for me like baby. I hope that baby's blessing Is only going to be one of many many many many books that are going to come out of Out of the region Inshallah when when when children read that book they they'll realize that you know their stories Have as much importance standing next to stories like um Like what I told you like famous five or secret seven or these other um world-known classics um that their stories matter too and so I'm Really trying to push for that Yeah, that's a very important thing absolutely um is there any advice you'd like to give to aspiring writers of diaspora Um, I think my greatest advice is just to Trust in your voice and trust in your story. It's something that I've Written about on my Instagram. I've talked about it before too uh quite a few times um It's easy. It's easy to feel like we don't belong Our voice doesn't belong in this arena in this space Because there's so many accomplished writers out there and so I'm sure if I ask my question who am I to write a book? I'm sure there's so many other people out there who are asking themselves the same question But I'd really advise anyone like if they have a story Deep within them That they should just go ahead and write it even if it just means taking a paper And putting words on the paper and just writing something every single day if they can But really put down um your story and then find people who can Nurture your story and really help craft it into something That readers from all across the world can actually sit down and read and enjoy And share with their families and friends and with their community But the first step is really believe in your voice and um Believe in your story Thank you um, so your book babies blessing. Where can listeners um get that book from? So babies blessing is available for my publisher's website Rokia's bookshelf.com um That she um my publisher ships worldwide For people who are in the UK, it's available also um an afea gifts and bookmark uk calm And I do believe that it's available in um A number of other mainly like um islamic Online bookstores around the world um Yeah, and I think it's also available or in amazon as well That's great. Uh, thank you very much Layla. This has been very interesting conversation. It's been very nice speaking to oh Thank you. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about? Um, no, I just wanted to um thank you so much for inviting me to your podcast It's quite exciting that I'm the first one that you're having on and um Yeah, I'm really looking forward to hearing from other authors who are going to be featured on this podcast Thank you. It's thank you for coming on. It's been an honor to have you on this um On here as my first uh guest I've been following you on Instagram for a while and was inspired by you and so I was like I have to have later goalsmith on my podcast. Wow, oh that's really amazing, to be honest most of the times I don't know what I'm doing on Instagram so with you telling me this I am shocked really surprised because I really don't know what I'm doing but I suspect no one knows what they're doing so we're all trying to bring it. Right, so you have a great rest of your day and have a great afternoon, remember me in your doors? I will, I will, thank you so much, enjoy your day to enjoy the rest of Ramadan in short. Thank you. Great, so I'm gonna go. Thank you so much, well, thank you so much.