Valerie Mason-John is second generation Black ritish. She was born in Cambridge and grew up in orphanages. She began her career as a journalist and covered a range of stories from Australian Aboriginal Land Rights. Black deaths in custody, to prisoners in Maghaberry Prison, Northern Ireland. Here work has been published in the Guardian, The Voice and The Morning Star. She has written and produced several plays, and is the author of five books. The first two document the lives of African and Asian women in Britain, her third a collection of poetry prose and plays, and a self awareness manual working Detox Your Heart, working with anger fear and hatred.