How Jadyn-Elia Lansana built a career as a storyteller

A small amount of searching about me will probably reveal some kind of bio or comment about how I’ve been writing and storytelling my whole life.

It’s entirely possible that my career started with the childhood wonder and simplicity of daydreaming for days at a time with Playmobil, Barbies, imaginary friends, MovieStarPlanet films, Episode stories, diaries and endless Notes app entries, before I finally started drafting and re-drafting scraps of a novel in 2020.

Maybe my career started in 2020, then – the year of 2020 vision and introspection when, like so many of us, I walked a desire pathway into my reality and chose storytelling as the destination, which differed from what was typically encouraged at my secondary school.

Although, maybe my career started in academia. At undergrad, I studied English Lit with Creative Writing, which is where it became clear that the threads of my making were completely entangled with a sort of desperation for storytelling. I simply could not do anything else. Or perhaps it started in the three years I spent working in hospitality whilst studying: collecting stories; friends; a way to live.

Straight out of undergrad, I couldn’t bear having to think about what to do with this urgency in a world that demands surety and pattern, when storytelling is a meticulous discovering and uncovering. My career started with me running headfirst into postgrad and deeper into hospitality, though I was desperate for greater financial and physical stability.

Perhaps my career started in the countless applications sent without foreseeable progress. Maybe it started when I discovered Creative Access and, after a hundred more applications, finally secured a traineeship at the Association for Laboratory Medicine (LabMed) as an editorial assistant. I thought a publishing career was what I needed to be within breathing distance of storytelling, and the traineeship felt like a starting point for achieving that.

My career started over the six months I spent hosting interviews with healthcare professionals, writing and editing more copy than I can count, onboarding staff and volunteers for various duties and learning how to use Outlook properly. Initially, I wasn’t sure how well a creative writing student and a scientific organisation would match, but I very quickly came to love working with the team and expanding into areas of editorial processes that I hadn’t explored before.

I finished the traineeship at LabMed with high hopes of moving seamlessly into a publishing role, but found it much more difficult than expected. Unable to land so much as an interview, I spent months feeling deflated. Nonetheless, my career began in that waiting period, in hospitality once again where I spent valuable months thinking about what kind of person I wanted to be. Still, endless rejections and London living expenses made this period a trial.

October rolled around along with the end of my Masters – the month my career might have started. Always looking for stories, I attended Wimbledon Book Fest for the first time with a close friend, where I was able to meet Sofia Akel – founder of the non-profit organisation Free Books Campaign. Sofia offered me kind words and encouragement about finding my way into the corners of the book industry that mean the most to me. She told me to reach out to people – to ask where I could get involved, because it’s always a no if you never ask. The first person I reached out to was her.

In December, I volunteered for Free Books Campaign’s Christmas event at Brixton House. My career started when I asked for advice, when I experienced this unbelievable joy and sense of belonging. Alongside the rest of the Free Books Campaign team, I helped deliver 700 free books by authors of colour to Brixton’s community. In the new year I made a somewhat sappy LinkedIn post about it, and Sofia responded by contacting me with an offer to become an official part of the Free Books Campaign team. My career started when Sofia saw something in me.

My career also started in March, when a former colleague reached out and a new chance opened up for me. That month, I was able to return to LabMed and take on a new role as committee officer. My career started when both of these opportunities greeted me at once, just as I was losing hope altogether.

Image credit: Francis Augusto, Free Books Festival 2026

I don’t know where the genesis of my journey is. I think everything has been the start, and I’m grateful for every part of it.

I’ve now been with LabMed for six months and Free Books Campaign for seven, and I think this, too, is the start of my career.

Since joining Free Books Campaign, I have been able to set up a gorgeous cosy library at Aethos London and co-organise the photoshoot to promote it, interview and be interviewed by so many inspiring communities, changemakers and storytellers, such as OurPPLS and Resolve Collective, and joined behind the scenes of a Stylist Magazine photoshoot with Sofia to absorb and learn from the team. I’ve attended events run by our friends and partners, such as Casual Readers Club and First Five Live, assistant-produced a huge campaign with TfL to deliver 500 brand-new books across the Tube network and took on the role of social media producer for the Free Books Festival this summer. On top of all that, I discovered hundreds of new books by authors of colour and made some of the most beautiful, blessed friends.

Being with LabMed again has allowed me to move into the working world comfortably, with a team that supports me and my learning and genuinely wants to see me grow into the big dreams I hold outside this role. Organisation, planning and coordination have become second nature now, and it’s so exciting to be able to tell people I’m a key person on projects such as the NHS’s Lab Tests Online, helping create accessible and comprehensive information for patients about their test results.

Looking back now, I have become connected to literature, community and storytelling in a way I spent so long dreaming of. With roles and experiences across different worlds, I am ready to finally start my career – or continue it.