Stormzy has launched an initiative to help young authors.
The ‘Blinded By Your Grace’ hitmaker has developed publishing imprint #Merky Books, in collaboration with Penguin Random House, which will become a platform for young people to have a voice.
He shared on Instagram: "Super proud to announce our new venture #Merky Books, a publishing imprint in collaboration with Penguin Random House @penguinukbooks. We will be using this as a platform for young writers to become published authors, I know too many talented writers that don’t always have an outlet or a means to get their work seen and hopefully #Merky Books can now be a reference point for them to say "I can be an author" and for that to be a realistic and achievable goal."
And the 24-year-old rapper says the imprint will be searching high and low for potential authors including through school competitions and submissions.
He added: "Reading and writing as a kid was integral to where I am today and I from the bottom of my heart can not wait to hear your stories, your poems, your novels, your sci-fis and then getting them out into the big wide world. Proper proud of this! We’ll be doing school competitions, taking entries and submissions and looking for writers as well but I’ll keep you posted! #Merky Books will also be offering a paid internship in 2019! The first book to be released under the imprint will be "Rise Up: The #Merky Journey So Far" out November 1st and available for pre order now (sic)"