Soft on Soft by Em Ali (which I received as an ARC with a different title, #FatGirlsInLove, that appears to be a working title) is an entirely unique story. It’s a romance between two fat sapphic women: Selena, a Black demisexual model, and June, the Arab-Persian, anxious make-up artist. Thanks to the profession of the two protagonists, Soft on Soft is full of diverse bodies being celebrated, colourful descriptions, flowers, and altogether vivid mental images.
“It’s a genre dominated by white, straight males, so American actress Nafessa Williams admits she was moved to tears when she pulled on her costume for the first time to play a black, lesbian superhero. “It was a moment,” she says. “I mean, I’m representing a whole group of people who need to see themselves on TV.”
Williams plays Thunder in the hit television series Black Lightning – and is in London this week to promote its second series and hopefully convert more Britons to what she admits is “not your typical superhero show”.
“Yes, we’re wearing costumes but we’re not fighting aliens or creatures in an alternative universe,” she says. “We’re fighting real-life issues that are happening within our country, in our inner cities. Police brutality, gang crime, drug crime, social injustice – and we’re shedding light on it.”
Williams plays Anissa Pierce, a medical student and black-rights activist who learnt of her superhuman powers in the first series.
She tells how a teenager recently approached her and thanked her for playing a strong, black, gay woman. “She said that after seeing Anissa she now feels normal being a lesbian. It’s pretty cool because as a young black girl I didn’t have a superhero to look up to – there was no one who looked like me,” she says.”
knitting in the dark 