Nova Reid is an award-winning writer, TED speaker, and producer devoted to difficult perceptions round race, identification, and historical past.
Her newest venture, Hidden Histories, is a compelling six-part Audible Unique podcast illuminating the missed contributions of Black girls who profoundly influenced British and international society. Right here, Nova displays on her private journey of bringing these very important tales into the sunshine.
Please introduce your self
My title is Nova – which suggests new. It’s additionally the title of the brightest star within the sky. I’m British-Jamaican and I’m a Libra, so I actually love stability – in each sense of the phrase.
Describe your life at the moment in a single phrase or a sentence.
Evolving.
Why are we right here?
I ask myself this query so much. I consider we’re right here to do the work previous generations couldn’t. I actually consider we’re right here to go away the world in a greater place than after we entered it and I consider we’re right here to progress generational therapeutic
Inform us about Hidden Histories with Nova Reid in your individual phrases…
Hidden Histories with Nova Reid uncovers the untold tales of extraordinary and deliciously disobedient Black girls who formed world historical past, British tradition, and society. I had the seed of the concept to create the present after I first began writing my ebook The Good Ally over 6 years in the past. My classes in historical past the place Black folks had been acknowledged past subjugation, got here as an grownup. As I used to be researching my ebook, I realized intimately about massive volumes of resistance that occurred within the Caribbean – notably Jamaica and I used to be intrigued by it. I used to be pissed off that I hadn’t realized about empowering tales from pioneers at college, like Cubah Cornwallis, a robust healer who used plant medication to heal, or Queen Nanny of the Maroons – a non secular warrior who annihilated British colonial forces. As an alternative, I needed to endure King Henry VIII, on repeat.
What impressed you to create it, and what drives your strategy to storytelling?
I needed to be taught extra about these girls – not nearly what they achieved, however who they had been past their roles – I needed to centre their humanity, as so usually Black girls are decreased to what they do and never who they’re. I used to be headhunted by a growth producer years later to create one thing for Audible and pitched some concepts – together with this one (I’ve extra concepts than time) and it caught.
What’s your function?
I’m the host, one of many government producers and in addition co-writer on this present
Sure to girls’s tales being unhidden, particularly Black girls’s, however when did it turn into obligatory for you personally to hitch the journey to carry these tales to the forefront? Why you?
Why not? I’ve at all times been a author and storyteller. After I wrote my ebook – it didn’t really feel like a alternative, it was one thing that wanted to be birthed, it wanted to be witnessed, and I trusted it was going to occur. This was the identical.
I’m naturally curious and if issues really feel unjust or don’t make sense to me, I need to deeper perceive them. I need to search the reality. I’ve at all times been like that. Misogynoir – ( a time period coined by Dr Moya Bailey) the mixed expertise of sexism and racism, worse than experiencing both by itself, signifies that Black girls’s work is commonly erased, handed off as others or intentionally hidden, it’s a persisting systemic and historic difficulty. So, if we don’t inform our tales, who will?
How did you put together to delve into these traditionally vital but underrepresented tales?
Among the analysis I had delved into when writing my ebook so it meant returning to it and deciding which elements of their tales I needed to inform, and dig deeper and wider. It was so essential to me to humanise these girls. As somebody also known as an activist I’m so usually minimised to what it’s that I’ve achieved, quite than who I’m as a human being. So it was essential to attempt to discover out who these girls had been past their contribution and past battle.
With so many tales obtainable, how did you resolve whose tales to focus on?
The ladies picked me as a lot as I picked them. I used to be led by the tales most hidden, or the elements of the ladies’s humanity that felt non-existent, or incomplete, that fed my curiosity. Plus all the girls are Caribbean, that was essential to me, as their tales are interwoven with mine on this present.
Converse on the editorial model of the podcast. You’ve narration, background sounds, and stay interviews – how did you provide you with the manufacturing, and who had been your important group members?
I work very emergently, which was a supply of rivalry for a lot of the manufacturing group. I need to write about what strikes me, not what’s pre-scripted, that bores me. So, at occasions, the story modified path primarily based on stimuli we might get from a dialog with a contributor, if what they shared piqued my curiosity. For instance, certainly one of our pioneers, Miss Lou, wasn’t one of many authentic girls I picked, she got here up throughout a stay interview and I used to be like “I have to incorporate her”.
Each single individual at each single stage on a manufacturing performs an important function. Together with sturdy editorial, Audible had been clear from the start that they needed the podcast to be immersive so we actually take our listeners on a journey. Some listeners have mentioned it’s like occurring vacation with a buddy. So sound design, achieved by the group at Ai Ai studios, was an important side. From the chook tune within the Blue Mountains, to the laid-back bustle in Kingston, Jamaica and the gospel sounds of a church organ. In addition to my theme tune music used all through the present, which has essentially the most scrumptious reggae lick.
Our Jamaica fixers had been key in making certain primary wants had been met, together with understanding the best way to navigate difficult terrains and making certain our security. Our contributors had been additionally essential as a lot of the girls we highlight within the sequence died many many years in the past, so getting the element of private and skilled accounts had been key in bringing their humanity and tales to life.
What did you discover most difficult about creating this podcast sequence, each technically and emotionally?
There have been a variety of challenges on this venture, some sudden and a few completely avoidable. We needed to reschedule our journey to Jamaica attributable to hurricane Beryl inflicting devastation throughout the Caribbean and needed to ponder an entire pivot, together with not recording in Jamaica in any respect, which might have altered your complete sequence. Extra usually, there have been many occasions I felt like a deliverable and never a human being. Too usually safeguarding shouldn’t be even thought-about on productions and unhealthy work cultures are normalised and that was extremely difficult.
A few of our episodes take us again to when the Caribbean was beneath British colonial rule and the cruel realities of that. Trauma is current. I even have lineage misplaced to slavery, and my tales are interwoven all through many of those girls’s. We’ve got many parallels. I’m interacting with my very own humanity and my very own experiences of dehumanisation in actual time. It takes, and took a toll. The emotional toll of not simply researching, writing and presenting robust tales, however holding house for contributors who had been sharing about their very own private experiences with demise and trauma was grossly underestimated.
What was essentially the most rewarding?
With the ability to contribute to archiving some extraordinary legacies. And submit launch, seeing folks take images with their younger youngsters subsequent to billboards, of photos of all our girls from the present, has been fairly particular. And on Mom’s Day, I obtained essentially the most lovely message from the household of certainly one of our girls thanking me for recognition and selecting to inform their mom’s story. I used to be deeply moved.
Initially of the podcast, you share a mild love be aware, providing listeners a warning in regards to the emotional impression they might expertise as a result of nature of those tales. As a psychological well being practitioner, how did you maintain your self whereas navigating these narratives?
Sure, completely. Wellbeing is essential to me and it wasn’t at all times revered by everybody on the group, which took a toll and meant that even I didn’t at all times handle to take care of myself as greatest I may. It was actually onerous.
I largely took care of myself with a lot of bodywork, swimming and meditation a number of occasions every week. Constructing in relaxation days in my contract. When issues obtained robust, I doubled up on remedy (twice every week). And voice notes. Hours and hours of voice notes and phone-calls with my mates and given my former skilled background in psychological well being, it helps that lots of them occur to be Buddhists and psychologists.
Whose story affected you essentially the most, whether or not positively, negatively, surprisingly, or in any other case?
Gosh all of them affected me indirectly. Olive Morris is one and has been a standout to many listeners too. She was a radical Black feminist and did a lot for therefore many individuals and we actually get to the essence of her playful and feisty character. We take a look at when Blackness and queerness intersect and the way homophobia can reveal itself and depart listeners with the truth that though activist areas are presupposed to be, they aren’t at all times secure for everybody. Olive’s story additionally stands out due to her untimely demise. Her signs had been dismissed by docs, which is one thing so many Black girls proceed to expertise, together with the exploration of grief after we lose folks we love, each of which have opened up some essential conversations.
I feel Barbara Blake-Hannah (the UK’s first Black feminine TV reporter) impacted me essentially the most, not simply due to what occurred to her whereas she was in Britain, or her attractive vitality, however as a result of she is our solely dwelling pioneer. So to listen to her inform her personal story and to precise such gratitude for selecting to function her was very particular.
Do you’ve got a favorite quote or second from the sequence that actually defines what this journey has meant to you?
There have been so many moments, however for me it was a private thanks from Barbara Blake-Hannah and academic chief Gertrude Paul’s household. That’s what it’s all about for me. Acknowledging, honouring and recording their legacy and doing it respectfully. I’m actually pleased with that.
GETTING TO KNOW YOU …
If not this, then what? Slightly retreat/therapeutic house within the Caribbean serving to folks reconnect to the land, themselves and support generational therapeutic, and internet hosting my very own chat present.
What’s made you unhappy, mad, and glad this week? Folks dying, international politics, randomly seeing my face on a billboard on a tube on the best way to dinner with pals.
What are you watching? Quantity One on the Name Sheet on Apple TV.
What are you studying? Enjoyable reality, I don’t actually learn books, I a lot choose to hearken to them, as I’m a robust audio processor so I’ve a number of on the go. What it takes to Heal by my pricey colleague Prentis Hemphill, Lovers Rock – Calabash Pageant, Trevor Noah Born against the law (for the 4th time).
The final movie you watched? The Girl King (for the seventh time).
The final play you noticed? Retrograde.
The final stay music occasion you attended? Ayo, at Camden Jazz Café. Dreamy.
What’s at the moment in your music playlist? What’s not on it!
Which tune are you listening to on repeat for the time being? Hero – Kirk Franklin.
Which podcast(s) are you at the moment listening to? Hidden Histories with Nova Reid, and Trevor Noah’s What’s Subsequent?.
What’s in your bucket checklist? Residing within the Caribbean and directing a serious movie.
The place’s your glad place? Laying on my again within the Caribbean sea being held by the water.
Rejoice another person… Kym Oliver. Researcher, author and founding father of Our Residing Archives centring intracommunal therapeutic and archiving the lives of Black disabled girls and gender expansive folks.
Rejoice your self… Woo, this one was robust (an indication I don’t rejoice myself sufficient). Seeing Hidden Histories with Nova Reid get the industrial help and visibility it deserves and our girls, Black wome, as soon as hidden, on a whole bunch of billboards up and down the nation. That’s been a second.
What’s subsequent? We’ll see.
The place can we discover you? @novareidofficial on Instagram | Substack | web site: www.novareid.com.
The place can discover your newest work? You may hearken to Hidden Histories with Nova Reid on Audible and keep updated on my web site: www.novareid.com Substack or socials to see different work.