We Are Many.

The artists in this blog  have  all been  fostered adopted or in children's homes.  I know them all.  Their success, I believe,  is in spite of what happened to them and not because of it.   So let's  look over the  past fifty days to see what they've been up to.Alex Wheatle MBE  (pic) winner of 2016 Guardians Children’s Fiction Prize.  The adaptation of his early   book "Brixton Baird" was performed by  Big House Theatre in Brixton Rock.  Sophie Willen’s hit Edinburgh show  On The Record  is selling out theaters across the country and will soon (April 21st)  be at Soho theatre.    Louise Wallwein performed her hit one person show  GLUE  in Liverpool recently.  Glue has been adapted into a BBC Radio 4 play to be broadcast later this year. The director is brilliant too.  The extraordinary actor  Samantha Morton (pic above) is presently starring in ITV’s  Harlot.Allan Jenkins is teh editor of  Observer Food Monthly . His briliant book Plot 29 blossomed amongst  brilliant reviews.    A couple of weeks ago  I gave the John Lennon Memorial Lecture  at John Moores University in Liveroool. John Lennon was fostered.  Yoko Ono gives bursaries to  care leavers.      Deborah Frances White presents her hilarious and brilliant podcasts Global Pillage and Guilty feminist achieving  Millions of downloads in 2017.  My stylist (and friend) is Subrina Kidd.   Subrina styles the hair of  Jennifer Hudson (photograph below)  at the hit TV show The Voice.  Under the tutelege of Hudson The Voice was won by  Mo Adeniran.  (Pic below).This is just a scratch on the surface of the past fifty days.  My adaptation of Benjamin Zephaniah’s hit  novel Refugee Boy opens at Chickenshed Theatre in London on 19th April.    Refugee Boy  is about a young Ethiopian Eritrean foster child. And Jackie Kay (pic below) is Chancellor of Salford University.I am writing this blog for the record.  The days of being ashamed of being  fostered, in children's homes or  adopted are coming to an end. We've a long way to go.  We don't only talk about our experiences of care. We are good at what we do.   We are driven.  We are many.