When Candice Carty-Williams published her debut novel Queenie in 2019, the book about an imperfect 20-something Jamaican-British woman truly changed her life. Countless women connected with the titular character’s struggles with working, dating, and maintaining her friendships and mental health while reeling from her first major heartbreak, and it quickly became a critical and commercial success. Now, five years after becoming an overnight sensation in the publishing world, Carty-Williams is also an exciting new voice in the television role, bringing Queenie to the small screen as a Hulu miniseries (premiering on June 7).
“If you'd asked me at the start of my journey when I first started typing out the character Queenie sitting in the stirrups, where I would be in nine years, I wouldn't have said this at all,” the author tells Marie Claire. Despite her lack of expectations, Disney’s Onyx Collective, which produces projects from creators of color, helped her to helm the story into an eight-episode Hulu original.
