The PRECIOUS Arts Critic Programme: Irenosen Okojie

If you have been reading Precious over the last few months, then you'll know that we have been searching for an emerging young writer to take part in our first three month Arts Critic Programme.

The programme gives two people the opportunity to see and critque a range of theatre work in London and attempt to explore the cultural context of art reviewing. We're also offering some decent mentoring and access to some of the best names from our contacts book! We want to add more voices to the critical discourse and contribute to creating a diverse arts sector.

Well myself and the Precious Arts team (PJ Cobham and Amardeep Sohi) have interviewed some interesting and talented people and now, we have finally found the one.

Drum Roll please - I'm delighted to announce that the first person to join our Arts Critic Programme is Irenosen Okojie a London based freelance writer. We are all looking forward to working with her.

She'll be blogging about her experience on the programme via her new blog Sober in the Cauldron. Do support this new writing talent by following her.

New Year

Well what an interesting start to 2010 for me. I have been honoured with an MBE in the 2010 New Years Honours List. To say that I am staggered by this would be a vast understatement, its been a few weeks since the call came from through and I'm still finding it very weird.

I founded Precious a decade ago because I had a genuine passion to profile the achivements of women of colour. It's been a struggle getting support from the 'mainstream' and I suppose I hadn't truly thought that anyone at government level would notice what I was trying to do.
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The family is delighted, in particular my mum and that's good enough for me. I have had messages from people who have supported Precious for years, those I haven't seen for years and people I have never met, all wishing me just total good stuff. That's been so lovely and I have been overwhelmed by the good feeling.

I head to the Palace in February, and for a girl that hates shopping, its one of those rare occasions that I am kinda getting excited about what to wear...