Kadija Sesay is founder and publisher of SABLE, a literary magazine that focuses on new writings by writers of African and Asian descent. She is also the series editor for the Inscribe imprint for Peepal Tree Press.

In addition to this, Kadija Sesay edits anthologies. So far, the anthologies she has edited include: Six Plays by Black and Asian Women Writers; Write Black, Write British: From Post Colonial to Black British Writing; IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain; Dance the Guns to Silence: 100 Poems for Ken Saro Wiwa; and the forthcoming, Dreams, Miracles and Jazz: Adventures in New African Fiction.

She spoke about her writing and the work she is doing with writers of African and Asian descent.

How do you find the time to do all the things you are doing and still be able to write?

At the moment, I am doing too much. But I don't like abandoning things that aren't complete unless it's for a very good reason. I'm trying to phase some things out - it's difficult and taking longer than I would like.

For the past few years, I've really only written if someone asks me to contribute something that will definitely be published. I don't have much time to concentrate on my craft as a writer. Or I go away on a writer's workshop, which always motivates me to write; stimulates new ideas etc.

I'm trying to create more time for me, to dip into writing now and then in a much more relaxed way as well as have more time for reading. But I've never really been like that - that constitutes a wholesale lifestyle change and I'm convinced that what the problem really is is that the days are much shorter than they used to be!

I don't mind this right now, as it is a choice I have made. I enjoy working with other writers in the way that I do; when I am ready to focus on me, I'll do that.

A lot of the work that you are doing focuses on black arts, literature and women's issues. What motivated you to focus on these issues?

It happened naturally, really. About 15 years ago, I read a book called Live Your Dreams by Les Brown. I then made the decision that whatever I had to do, to earn my daily bread, should be something that I love so that it didn't feel like work. Here I am! It can be dangerous though, as it is very easy to do that and not get paid and so only earn daily crumbs.

If I had had more confidence in myself at that time, I probably would have gone to journalism school, or if I had known about the Creative Writing M.A. at the University of East Anglia (UEA), [I] would have gone to do that.

I grew up in an era when Creative Writing wasn't a degree choice. Wasn't even an "A Level Choice." I told my teachers that I wanted to study "English Language" as an A Level subject, as that was the subject in which we wrote poetry and prose, wrote non-fiction, had to write précis, learnt English grammar, and I loved it. But they said it didn't exist as an "A" Level course. When I asked them why, they said they didn't know.