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Stay in your lane? The latest WritersMosaic Quarterly

If everyone is being schooled to stay in their lane to avoid risking accusations of taking up space better occupied by an ‘expert,’ what might we be missing?

As WritersMosaic marks its fifth anniversary, the latest edition of The WritersMosaic Quarterly celebrates the magazine’s success in creating a literary platform for writers of the global majority to expand beyond the writing expected of them.

Stay in your lane? sees writers Will Harris, Maggie Gee, Naomi Foyle, Hannah Lowe, Colin Grant, Magnus McDowall, Taíno Mendez, Chitra Ramaswamy and Amy Abdelnoor explore their own experiences of writing ‘outside their lane’, interrogating how they attempt to think beyond the parameters of their cultural identity and reflecting on the limits of empathy.

An animating principle of WritersMosaic is to provide writers of the global majority with a chance to step out of the lane of writing expected of them, which, crudely speaking, is often defined by a focus on race. To a degree, the inverse is also true, with white writers nervous about writing about ‘black subjects’ and discouraged from doing so.

Stay in your lane? resonates forcefully with this aim and mission, reflecting the very reason for the existence of WritersMosaic, as director Colin Grant says: 

“On the fifth anniversary of WritersMosaic, the Stay in your lane? Quarterly acts as a north star for our future. It resonates forcefully with the aim and mission of WritersMosaic, both as a magazine and a division of the Royal Literary Fund. The edition aims to challenge the assumptions of those who want us to keep to our so-called lanes.”

Stay in your lane? is out now, available as a print insert in The Bookseller and on the WritersMosaic website.

The WritersMosaic Quarterly is produced by and primarily features writers of the global majority, both in and outside the UK. Previous editions include Malcolm X: By any means necessary, Iranian Women’s Voices, Frantz Fanon: Revolutionary Psychiatrist, Talismans of Migration and Everyone Has an Elsewhere.

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