Celebrating 180 years of The London Library - Lianne Dillsworth

When you’re just starting out, it takes courage to call yourself a writer. Yes, all you really need is pen and paper and a love of reading, but from the outside it can feel impenetrable and sometimes, the way we talk about writing, and publishing in particular with all its dos and don’ts, can contribute to that. When I’ve been struggling to believe in the words I’ve put down on the page, I’ve reached for things outside myself for reassurance. One of those has been my London Library membership card. I think of it as a talisman.

From the first time I sat down to work in the Writers’ Room, I didn’t need to tell myself I was a writer anymore, I could feel it. It was late afternoon and I’d walked down to the Library after work. When I opened the door there were about six people inside, and I tucked myself away at a desk in the corner. But though we were all sitting far apart, hard at work on our individual projects, it felt like we were part of a collective endeavour. And I thought of all the other writers down the years who’d sat there, too. Writers I’d read and loved, writers who’d inspired my own work, and I took comfort from being part of an established tradition of authors who were Library members.

I don’t always say I’m a writer if people ask me what I do, but if I’m ever doubting it I know it’s time to take a trip to 14 St James’s Square.

Age of Monsters, the debut novel by this alumni of the inaugural London Library Emerging Writers Programme, will be published in March 2022 by Windmill. Dillsworth was shortlisted for the 2020 SI Leeds Literary Prize for Black and Asian women writers in the UK