Diana Evans: 'Writing is an act of hope'

About this episode

Diana Evans discusses her short story 'Ice Cream' and reflects on youth unemployment and cultural experiences from the 1990s.

Spring is here and so is Fictionable, with another set of exclusive short stories and another series of podcasts where we meet our fantastic authors. During the next few weeks we'll be hearing from Takiguchi Yūshō and the translator Jesse Kirkwood, Bruna Martini, Holly Edwards and Joel Cox. But this Spring series marks a return to Fictionable for Diana Evans, who joined us on the Fictionable podcast way back in 2022 to talk about her short story Broth. This time she brings dessert, with Ice Cream, which catches a young woman in that awkward gap between graduation and real life. Evans says she was thinking back to her own past and comparing it with the ongoing crisis in youth unemployment. "It's such a long stretch," she says. "It seems almost like climbing a mountain to actually manifest your talents and give what you have to offer to the world, and for it to be accepted." Evans takes us back to the 1990s, when she fell into a job as culture editor at Pride magazine. "There was this huge Black music scene," she recalls, "that was just proliferating and I was interviewing these rappers and R&B singers. Rap music was becoming pop music and reggae was really popular. It was just…

People in this episode

Guest: Diana Evans

Topics covered

• youth unemployment
• Black music scene
• 1990s culture
• creative expression
• social issues

Keywords

• Diana Evans
• Ice Cream
• youth unemployment
• Black music
• 1990s
• Pride magazine
• creative expression

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Pride magazine

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