Bernadette Reed is a singer-songwriter, completing the Goldsmiths MA in Creative and Life Writing in 2012. She attended Malika’s Poetry Kitchen in the months following for the experience of lively ongoing writing support. She is preparing a collection of poems about growing up in a small village in South Wales, from where she moved to London in the late seventies. An acupuncturist at The New Cross Natural Therapy Centre, she is a member of Southwark Stanza and Meantime Poets and hosts Talking Rhythm, a monthly poetry and music open mic with guests, which alternates between Greenwich and Deptford.

Australian, Cath Drake’s first poetry collection ‘The Shaking City’ (Seren Books, 2020) was described by Philip Gross as ‘a guide to staying clear-eyed, combative and caring in unsettling times.’ It follows ‘Sleeping with Rivers’ which won the Seren/Mslexia poetry pamphlet prize and was a Poetry Book Society choice. Published in anthologies and literary journals in Ireland, US and Australia, including Best Australian Poetry 2014, she’s been short-listed for Manchester Poetry Prize, second in the 2017 Resurgence Poetry School eco-poetry prize (now called Ginkgo) and highly commended in 2019. She teaches writing in the UK, Australia and online. She’s an award-winning journalist and nonfiction writer with a specialism in environmental issues, keen to draw attention to the climate and ecological crisis. Cath is also a mindfulness teacher.

Christina Fonthes is a Congolese-British writer. She found her writing voice in 2014 whilst living in Manchester. Her work, laden with themes of womanhood, religion, and sexuality, has been widely published in journals and anthologies worldwide. Her mantra, ‘telling stories through any means possible,’ allows her to bring untold stories to life through writing and community engagement. In 2018, after moving back to London, she founded REWRITE, a creative writing organization for Black Women and Women of Colour writers around the globe.

Daniel Kramb is a writer and poet. He is the author of three novels, Central (2015), From Here (2012), and Dark Times (2010); and a booklet of poetry, Timid Takes (2013). Look at Us is a play collaboration with JJ Bola. Other writing has appeared in The London Magazine, The Point, The Guardian, Popshot and elsewhere. Sin Sceal Eile, in collaboration with Jean Casey, is a listening project that turns life stories into poetry. He lives where the Thames becomes the sea.

Born in London, Denise Saul is a writer and poet. Her White Narcissi (Flipped Eye Publishing) was Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice and House of Blue (Rack Press) was PBS Pamphlet Recommendation. She is a Geoffrey Dearmer Prize winner. Denise is the founder of Silent Room: A Journey of Language, a collaborative video poem project, funded by Arts Council England.

An artist. Since the 1980’s, as a member of Brixton Black Women’s Group, she’s contributed to Blackfeminist activism and was among the original staff of London’s Black Lesbian & Gay Centre Project. With two full poetry collections [Peepal Tree Press], her more recent chapbook Reader, I Married Him & Other Queer Goings-On, “is subversive…ultimately…about Black diasporic love.” Her collection Ship Shape is an ‘A’ Level English Literature text. She’s co-Director of INSCRIBE, a national Black & Asian writer development programme and visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art. Her commissioned poems about London’s ‘lost rivers’ will feature on nineteen ventilation columns of the new Thames Tideway Tunnel. Dorothea is currently pursuing a practice-led PhD at The UWI, Cave Hill, Barbados. Photo: Chris Scott

Fahad Al-Amoudi is a poet based in London. He is a Roundhouse 2019 finalist and graduate of the Writing Squad. He was longlisted for the 2020 Streetcake Experimental Writing Prize and has been published in the anthology ‘Slam’, edited by Nikita Gill. Fahad is also part of a spoken word band called The Poetry Experiment and is co-founder of the online music journalism platform, Keylime.

Fikayo Balogun is a writer and spoken-word artist based in London. She has a Masters degree in Creative and Professional Writing from Roehampton University. She has performed in and won many spoken word slams across Europe. Her works have also appeared in several magazines and anthologies. She has been a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen for years writing alongside renowned writers. Fikayo grew up in Nigeria and moved to London alone as an adult, this can sometimes reflect in the use of language in her work. She is currently working on her first collection.

Touted in The Independent as ‘a name to watch’, Gemma Weekes is critically-acclaimed author of Love Me (Chatto & Windus), multidisciplinary artist, singer, musicmaker and poet who has performed nationally and internationally. Her work has appeared in several anthologies and literary journals including IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain (Penguin) and Kin (Serpent’s Tail), Mechanic’s Institute Review 14 , and most recently in Filigree (Peepal Tree Press) and she was recently shortlisted for the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize. She has written for theatre, TV and radio and has musically scored various dance projects and short films.

Hannah Gordon is a London Irish, queer poet, teacher and facilitator from Brent who has been a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen since 2019. She was a host of Spoken Word London and co-led their 2019 Anti-Hate festival. She is the founder and chief facilitator of Word Up’s Words Down writing group and was selected for the inaugural Mid-Career Poets program at the Roundhouse. Her poetry has been published in various anthologies and she has performed at events all over London, in Paris and New York.

Harry Man won the UNESCO Bridges of Struga Award. His pamphlet Lift was shortlisted for a Best New Pamphlet Sabotage Award and his second, Finders Keepers, illustrated by the artist Sophie Gainsley was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.

Heather Taylor is a writer, director, and co-founder of the creative studio, Cereal Made. She was a resident of the 2018/19 Bell Media Prime Time TV program at the Canadian Film Center, and the 2019 Corus Writers Apprentice Program. She has developed shorts, web series, and features - both narrative and documentary - and graduated with a Master's in Screenwriting from City University, London. Heather's career highlights include her first feature film script, The Last Thakur, which premiered at the London International Film Festival; her sci-fi web series, Raptured; Stitched, her award-winning horror short, which played at festivals internationally; and her three published poetry collections: She Never Talks of Strangers, Horizon and Back, and Sick Day Afternoons.

Writer and lover of poems, plays, films and stories. I was blessed to be a member of MPK and shared the table with some amazing poets for about three years. Currently focussing my craft on scriptwriting. My short play, Boxes, was performed as part of Xposed in 2019 at the Southwark Playhouse.

Janett Plummer is the recipient of a Royal Society of Authors Literature Matters awards for the Chosen? adoption project, and she co-edited the resulting anthology with Charlotte Ansell. Chosen? was published by Aspire Creativity.

Her forthcoming poetry collection, The architect of her undoing, is about Looked After Children and fostering.

Winner of four poetry slam titles and a commended short story slam finalist, Janett was shortlisted for the London short story prize and is a micro-fiction winner. Her pamphlet Lifemarks is published by Flipped Eye and reprinted in The Mouthmark Book of Poetry. Her work is included in anthologies Jubilation, RED, A Storm Between Fingers, Chosen? and Handmade Fire.

An original member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, Janett has also written and performed theatre shows with Thea Poets and JAWA. She is the founder of Inspired Word, an organisation for women survivors which promotes poetry’s therapeutic qualities.

Jocelyn Page is an American currently in London, where she lives with her partner and sons. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College & The University of London Worldwide. She published smithereens (tall lighthouse) in 2010 and You’ve Got to Wait Till the Man You Trust Says Go (Argent) in 2016, as well as poems in The Spectator, Poetry Review and Poetry Ireland Review.

Kareem Parkins-Brown is a Barbican Poet alumnus & proud North-West Londoner. He is happiest when watching Mean Girls or Carlito’s Way. Shortlisted for Young People’s Laureate for London one time & the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship in 2019. His work concerns hood life circa 2005 – present day.

Khairani Barokka is an Indonesian writer and artist in London. Her work has been presented widely, in 15 countries. Okka is currently Associate Artist at the National Centre for Writing, and Researcher-in-Residence and Research Fellow at UAL’s Decolonising Arts Institute. Her books include debut collection Rope (Nine Arches), Indigenous Species (Tilted Axis; Vietnamese translation, AJAR Press) and Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (as co-editor; Nine Arches). Among her honours, she was a UNFPA Indonesian Young Leader Driving Social Change, and an NYU Tisch Departmental Fellow.

Caring for her father whilst living with Alzheimer’s, Mary Renouf found they shared a kind of liminal space where challenges, humour and surprises charged and changed their lives. Since then, Mary and Joanna Procter together with her partners from Reveal Productions, were awarded a grant from ’Solutions for an Ageing Society’ fund to make a film CARE AS YOU ARE about the emotional impact of suddenly becoming a carer for a friend or relative with dementia. The film is also currently being developed, (with support from Somerset Adult Social Care) as a training resource for supporting carers and all relevant associations to do with care.

Melanie Mauthner is a translator of French literature. She joined Malika's Poetry Kitchen in 2010. Winner of the French Voices Grand Prize 2013 for Our Lady of the Nile, her translation of Scholastique Mukasonga's novel, Melanie is also a Hawthornden Fellow. Her translations of Scholastique Mukasonga's Rwandan stories have appeared in the New Yorker, the White Review, the Stinging Fly andthe New England Review. She has written a series of haibun, a Japanese form blending poetry and prose, about learning Russian, one of which 'The Path to the Lake' will be published in East-West Review in 2021.

Nick Makoha is the founder of The Obsidian Foundation. Winner of the 2021 Ivan Juritz prize. In 2017, Nick’s debut collection, Kingdom of Gravity, was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and was one of the Guardian’s best books of the year. Nick is a Cave Canem Graduate Fellow and The Complete Works alumnus. He won the 2015 Brunel International African Poetry Prize and the 2016 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Prize for his pamphlet Resurrection Man. His poems have appeared in the Cambridge Review, the New York Times, Poetry Review, The Rialto, Poetry London, TriQuarterly Review, Boston Review, Callaloo and Wasafri. He is a Trustee for the Arvon Foundation and the Ministry of Stories, and a member of the Malika’s Poetry Kitchen collective.

Orishanti is a Nigerian and British writer who has lived on every continent besides Antarctica. He’s worked a variety of jobs ranging from Bicycle Courier, English Language Teacher, Bartender, Radio Show Host, Organic Apple picker, and Film Extra to hustling the streets selling natural holistic products.

Patrick McIntosh is West London born, of Afro-Caribbean heritage. His work is evocative and beautifully haunting. His work is insightful, honest and vibrant. He joined MPK in 2006. Currently, his focus is on a series of poems that allows him to explore his heritage and upbringing, from the perspective of a black British citizen. Patrick is working towards a first chapbook.

Patricia Foster McKenley is a Malika’s Poetry Kitchen founder member and alumna. An award-winning poet and Inscribe contracted writer, she was Sable Poet-in-Residence at Mboka Festival (Gambia) 2017. Born in Lewisham, her writing is inspired by Jamaican British heritage and champions women and survivors. A life coach to artists, Patricia facilitates workshops; includes BBC, Every Woman Inspired (Jamaica), universities and schools. Patricia is published in anthologies and publications in UK, Norway and the USA. Performed in Netherlands, Norway, USA, Jamaica, Belgium and Gambia. Has toured UK, Europe and Chicago. In 2013, released her first poetry film ‘LIPS’.

Peter Kahn has twice been a commended poet in the Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition (UK). A high school teacher at Oak Park/River Forest High School since 1994, Peter was a Featured Speaker at the National Council of Teachers of English annual convention. As a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths-University of London, he founded the Spoken Word Education Training Programme. Along with Patricia Smith and Ravi Shankar, Peter co-edited The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks. Peter’s own collection—Little Kings—was recently published by Nine Arches Press (UK)

Sarah Reilly is interested in personal, political, and philosophical exploration; she offers thoughtful perspectives on what it means to be human. Contemporary ideas are filtered through a creative perspective, where imagination and philosophy merge, and sometimes collide.
Sarah is a creative maverick: her written work has been published in various poetry anthologies and her visual art exhibited widely; performances may draw on a range of creative media.
Sarah Reilly lives in Brixton with her female partner and works as a psychotherapist

Sundra Lawrence is a UK based poet and writer of Tamil heritage. Her work visits themes of migration, religion, and home. She is an experienced creative writing tutor and has performed her work across the UK and internationally. Sundra’s work has been broadcast on BBC television and radio, and is published in numerous anthologies including the Los Angeles Review. Sundra joined Malika’s Poetry Kitchen in 2001.

Tara Betts is the author of Break the Habit and Arc & Hue. In addition to her work as a teaching artist and mentor for young poets, she has taught at several universities, including Rutgers University and University of Illinois-Chicago. Recently, she taught poetry workshops for three years at Stateville Prison via Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project. Tara is Poetry Editor at The Langston Hughes Review. Dr. Betts is also in the process of establishing the nonprofit organization The Whirlwind Learning Center on Chicago’s South Side.

Arji Manuelpillai is a poet, performer and creative facilitator based in London. For over 15 years Arji has worked with community arts projects nationally and internationally. Recently, his poetry has been published by magazines including Prole, Cannon’s Mouth, Strix, Perverse, The Rialto and The Lighthouse Journal. He has also been shortlisted for the 2019 Oxford Brookes Prize, The BAME Burning Eye pamphlet prize 2018, The Robert Graves Prize 2018, and The Live Canon Prize 2017. Arji is a member of Wayne Holloway Smith’s poetry group, Malika’s Poetry Kitchen and London Stanza. His debut pamphlet is called Mutton Rolls and is published with Outspoken Press.

Charlotte Ansell‘s third poetry collection Deluge was published by Flipped Eye in November 2019 and was a PBS winter recommendation. She performs her poems regularly and her work has appeared in Poetry Review, Mslexia, Butcher’s Dog, Prole, Algebra of Owls and various anthologies; most recently ‘These are the hands’ – an anthology of poems by NHS workers. She has won various competitions (Red Shed, BBC Write Science competition in 2015, Watermarks in 2016, commended in Yorkmix in 2016 and shortlisted in the Poetry in film category of the Outspoken prize for poetry in 2017). Charlotte is the recipient of a Royal Society of Literature Award 2020 with Janett Plummer for the project Chosen? enabling adopted young people to explore their experience via creative writing workshops.

Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a poet, playwright & performer, graphic artist & designer and founder of: The Midnight Run (an arts-filled, night-time, urban walking experience.) The Rhythm and Poetry Party (The R.A.P Party) which celebrates poetry & hip hop, and Poetry + Film / Hack (P+F/H) which celebrates Poetry & Film. Across his work, Identity, Displacement & Destiny are reoccurring themes in which he also tries to mix the old with the new: traditional West African oral storytelling with contemporary poetics, paint with pixel, texture with vector. His books are published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches & Oberon.

Malika Booker is a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage. Her pamphlet Breadfruit received a Poetry Society recommendation and her collection Pepper Seed was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre prize for first full collection. She is published with Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire in Penguin Modern Poets 3.

Malika received her MA from Goldsmiths University and has begun a PhD at the University of Newcastle. She was the Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow in Creative Writing at Leeds University, the first British poet to be a fellow at Cave Canem, and the inaugural Poet in Residence at The Royal Shakespeare Company.

Malika hosts and curates New Caribbean Voices, Peepal Tree Press’s literary podcast, and is currently a poetry Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University.

The Little Miracles, originally published in Magma's Loss issue, won the 2020 Forward Prize for best single poem.

Dean Atta was named as one of the most influential LGBT people in the UK by the Independent on Sunday. His debut poetry collection, I Am Nobody’s Nigger, was shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. His Young Adult novel in verse, The Black Flamingo, won the 2020 Stonewall Book Award, and was shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, YA Book Prize and Jhalak Prize. Dean is based in Glasgow, and is Co-director of Scottish BAME Writers Network.

Rishi Dastidar’s poetry has been published by the Financial Times and BBC amongst many others. He is a fellow of The Complete Works, a consulting editor at The Rialto magazine, and chair of writer development organisation Spread The Word. A poem from his debut collection Ticker-tape was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2018. A pamphlet, the break of a wave, was published by Offord Road Books in 2019, and he is also editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches Press). His second collection, Saffron Jack, is published in the UK by Nine Arches Press.

Roger Robinson is a writer, poet, singer, and musician. He is one of the few unrelenting and constant observers of life in Brixton, of post-riot/pre-Brexit Britain. Roger Robinson is one of the most versatile and internationally respected dub poets. He has performed worldwide and is an experienced workshop leader and lecturer on poetry.

He was chosen by Decibel as one of 50 writers who have influenced the black-British writing canon. He received commissions from The National Trust, London Open House, The National Portrait Gallery, The V&A, INIVA and Theatre Royal Stratford East where he also was associate artist.

Roger’s collection, ‘A Portable Paradise‘ won the 2019 TS Eliot prize and the 2020 RSL Ondaatje Prize

Jacob Sam-La Rose is a poet, educator and editor. Sam-La Rose’s collection Breaking Silence was published by Bloodaxe in Autumn, 2011. He has run workshops and held residencies internationally at hundreds of schools and other institutions. He is particularly well known for his work with youth ‘slam’ poetry initiatives, and his advocacy for the positive impact of new technology on literary practice and collaboration. He has appeared at a wide range of venues and festivals, including Kiasma (Finland), the Centre of Contemporary Art (Glasgow), London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Aldeburgh Literary Festival, the Gwendolyn Brooks Writers’ Conference (Chicago), and The URB Festival (Helsinki).

Michelle Penn’s debut pamphlet, Self-portrait as a diviner, failing, won the 2018 Paper Swans Pamphlet Prize. Recent poetry has appeared in The Rialto, 192, Nimrod, B O D Y and Poetry Birmingham. Michelle plans innovative poetry/art/music events as part of Corrupted Poetry, which guest-edited Finished Creatures, issue 4 in 2020. When she’s not writing poetry, Michelle works as a museum interpretation consultant.

Soul Patel is a London based poet. The themes of family and love are key to his poetry. Soul placed third in the Magma Competition in 2016, was long listed in the National Poetry Competition 2016 and 2017, was a Troubadour International Poetry Prize Winner in 2017, and was shortlisted for the Complete Works Poetry programme. He is working towards his first pamphlet.

The daughter of Northern Irish parents, Katie Griffiths grew up in Ottawa, Canada. She returned to the UK for university and later worked at Radio Times, as a volunteers co-ordinator for refugees of the war in the former Yugoslavia, and as teacher at a further education college. In 2019 she came second in the National Poetry Competition with the poem ‘Do not indulge indigo’, and was a winner in Live Canon’s Pamphlet Competition with My Shrink is Pregnant. Katie is singer-songwriter in the band A Woman in Goggles, and also a member of Red Door Poets. Her first poetry collection, The Attitudes, is due from Nine Arches Press in 2021.

Peter Raynard‘s debut collection Precarious was published by Smokestack Books in 2018. It features poems about masculinity, class and mental health. His long poem The Combination: a poetic coupling of the Communist Manifesto was published by Culture Matters. He is the editor of Proletarian Poetry: poems of working class lives , which has featured over 130 contemporary poets. Peter is disabled with poly-endocrine disorder and all the accompanying cerebral side effects of depression, chronic fatigue, and anxiety.

Mehmet Izbudak was a London based – now Norwich based – playwright and poet, whose daytime jobs included being an Academic Teaching Developer at SOAS and a sessional lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London. He joined Malika’s Poetry Kitchen in 2014. He is also a member of the South Bank based poetry collective, Tideway Poets. Mehmet is presently working on a translation of Polish poet, Halina Poświatowska’s works.

Yomi Sode is a Nigerian British writer, performer, and facilitator. He is a recipient of the Jerwood Compton Poetry fellowship 2019. He has read his poems internationally at various festivals, as well as performed his debut solo show (COAT) to sold-out audiences. Yomi has been published in Rialto Magazine, The Poetry Review, Bare lit and 10: Poets of the New Generation, Bare Lit Anthology as well an essay contribution in SAFE: On Black British Men reclaiming space. Yomi is currently working on his first full length collection.

Joolz Sparkes is published in magazines such as Magma, South Bank Poetry, the Persister’s Zine, Shooter Literary Magazine, Ink, Sweat & Tears and in The Other Side of Violet and Loose Muse anthologies. She was Poet in Residence at Leicester Square tube station, shortlisted for Bridport Poetry Prize and featured at Ledbury Poetry Festival. In 2018 she was awarded Arts Council funding for Research and Development of a joint project with the poet Hilaire, which explores women’s history in Battersea and Islington over many centuries. Their joint poetry collection, London Undercurrents, was published by Holland Park Press in 2019 and uncovers the voices of London’s unsung heroines, north and south of the river.

Seraphima Kennedy grew up in west London. She writes poetry, creative non-fiction and journalism and her work has been published online and in print in The Guardian, The White Review, Four Hubs, And Other Poems and The Rialto. She has been shortlisted for The White Review Poet’s Prize, longlisted for the 2016 Primers/Poetry School scheme, and performed at Ledbury Poetry Festival and Poetry in Aldeburgh. In 2017 she was selected for the Jerwood/Arvon mentoring programme working with Pascale Petit, and in 2018 she was awarded a grant from Arts Council England to work on a first collection. Seraphima is a proud member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen.

Maisie Lawrence is a poet and fiction editor. She works at Bookouture and is a co-founder of Pride in Publishing, a new networking group for LGBTQ+ people who work with books.

Naomi Woddis is a photographer, writer and podcaster whose photography includes portraiture and still life. The aim of her work is to be clear, compassionate and honest. She is also interested in opening new dialogues about mental health and chronic invisible illness, living with both conditions herself. You can listen to her podcast ‘The Two of Us’ (originally aired on Reel Rebels Radio) where she talks to writers and artists about their work and how it relates to mental health and emotional well-being.

Ugochi Nwaogwugwu is a multidisciplinary creative who lives in Chicago and works in the world. A child of Nigeria, West Africa, her global sound and words pay homage to her homeland. Ugochi is an international singer, songwriter, poet, performer, educator and activist. Her personal, distinctive style emanates inspiration and expresses the vibrant spirit and atmosphere of the Igbo culture worldwide. Ugochi has written, performed and executive produced three albums, (African Buttafly, A.S.E. /Afro Soul Ensemble & Love Shot) on her independent label, Spirit Speaks, Inc. Her poems and essays have been featured in the anthologies, Storm Between Two Fingers (UK) and The Golden Shovel Anthology (USA) and Not Our President (USA).

Courtney Conrad is a Jamaican poet. She was the Roundhouse Slam 2018 runner-up and a BBC Fringe Slam 2019 finalist. She is an alumna of the Obsidian Foundation Black Poets Retreat, Roundhouse Poetry Collective and BBC Words First Scheme. She has competed internationally in Philadelphia at CUPSI 2018 and has performed at Glastonbury Festival, StAnza Scotland's International Poetry Festival and UK New Artists City Takeover Festival. Courtney was published in Bad Betty Press' ‘Field Notes on Survival’ anthology and her work has featured on BBC 1Xtra. She was longlisted for the Women Poets' Prize 2020.

Jill Abram has been Director of Malika’s Kitchen since 2010. She grew up in Manchester, travelled the world and now lives in Brixton. She worked for BBC Radio, specialising in making sound effects for comedy programmes. Her poems have been published in Under the Radar, The Rialto, Magma, Tears in the Fence, #MeToo Anthology, And Other Poems, The High Window and Ink Sweat & Tears. She performs her poems in London and beyond, including Ledbury Poetry Festival, Paris and USA. Jill produces and presents a variety of poetry events and she created and curates the Stablemates reading series.

Warsan Shire is a Somali British writer and poet born in Nairobi and raised in London. She has written two chapbooks, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth and Her Blue Body. She was awarded the inaugural Brunel International African Poetry Prize and served as the first Young Poet Laureate of London. She is the youngest member of the Royal Society of Literature and is included in the Penguin Modern Poets series. Shire wrote the poetry for the Peabody Award–winning visual album Lemonade and the Disney film Black Is King in collaboration with Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. She also wrote the short film Brave Girl Rising, highlighting the voices and faces of Somali girls in Africa’s largest refugee camp. Shire lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is her full-length debut poetry collection.

Zakia Carpenter-Hall is a writer, tutor and critic. Her poems have appeared in Callaloo, Magma, Wild Court, 3:AM and various visual poetry exhibitions. She was an inaugural winner of Poetry London's mentoring scheme and her chapbook Event Horizon was published by Sampson Low. Her poetry reviews and essays have been published by Poetry London, the Poetry School, Wild Court and in consecutive issues of The Poetry Review. Additionally, her approach to teaching and course design has gained the interest of Airbnb Experience and BBC Radio where she was interviewed about her course ‘Awakening the Writer Within’. She has an MFA (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Kingston University in London.

David Ogunmuyiwa, architect and founder of Architecture Doing Place and Mayor of London's design advocate. He is unique in the UK having worked as a housing officer for social landlords including Lambeth, Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Circle 33, before retraining as an architect. He combines practice with teaching architecture at Portsmouth University and is a Mayor’s Design Advocate.

Indigo Williams is a poet, spoken word educator and the co-founder of I Shape Beauty.

After bursting on to the poetry scene in 2010, Indigo established herself as an artist who commands the stage with gripping presence and powerful poetry. With both substance and passion, her work is emotive and thought provoking.

She has performed at Tedx Brixton, BBC Radio 4’s Bespoken Word, Glastonbury Festival and is the winner of the 2012 New Generation slam. Indigo is one of 6 leading poets working full-time in a secondary school as part of the pioneering Spoken Word Educators programme in conjunction with Goldsmiths University.

Nathalie Teitler works across the fields of arts, activism and academia. She holds a PhD in Latin American Poetry (King’s College London, 2000). She has run literature programmes promoting diversity in the UK for over 20 years, founding the first national mentoring and translation programmes for writers living in exile, and is the Director of The Complete Works – a national development programme that helped to raise the number of Black and Asian poets published by major presses from less than 1% in 2005 to its current level of 16%. Nathalie is the co-founder of Invisible Presence – a national programme developing British Latino writers. She is also in the process of setting up an international centre to promote diversity in poetry, Poetry Action, in partnership with Roehampton Poetry Centre.

Beyonder’s skills, and experience as a creative education practitioner are tailor-made for the educational sector. As an award-winning multimedia artist & educator, Beyonder uses his creative talents to excite and inspire pupils to express their creativity through language, performance and digital arts. Directing the feature length documentary ‘Diaspora Diaries’ (2007) – one of the outputs from his tenure as Artist-In-Residence for literature and multimedia during the UK wide festival Africa ‘05.
Produced and performed in the award nominated short film ’Digitalis’ (2002). He is a 5-time poetry slam champion, as well as creator of the graphic novel “Digitalis – The Digital Revolution.”

His client list ranges from Channel Four and the BBC, to TATE Britain, the V&A, and the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge University). His film screenings have taken place at avant-garde cultural beacons such as the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), The British Museum, and The National Film Theatre.

Denrele (Ogunwa) is a journalist and poet currently residing in England. Her poetry, articles and columns have appeared in newspapers and magazines in Nigeria and England. An aesthete and lover of jazz music, Denrele's muses are passion, darkness and light, not necessarily in that order. Her poems re-echo the theme of escape from night into dawn, a consistent search for doorways that lead out and away from the present into some other place full of promises and new beginnings. She is featured in the German translation of Nigerian poetry selected by Uche Nduka, Junge Nigerianische Lyrik. She has a degree in Political Science

Anjan Saha is a London poet and short story writer. He founded Midnight Ink, a literature and live art development project based at Riverside Studios, London. Since then he has gone on to tour with Renaissance, One KIN and performed across the globe from the Jazz Cafe in Czech Republic to Mumbai, India.

He has received numerous commissions including Tate Britain and Ipswich Arts Festival. He was a member of the writing collective 'Poetry Kitchen' and has written and performed three critically acclaimed shows; Mathematics of Rain, Tales from the Cooking Pot and Lost Luggage – The Art of Travelling Lightly.

Caroline Hussey-Bain (b. 1984, Northampton, UK) has been an Art, and Heritage sector working with British, European and International based Major Donors for over Fifteen years. She has worked with small independent and private galleries to large national institutions including Royal Museums Greenwich and Tate. As a 2014 Winston Churchill Fellow, she worked extensively in North America including at the Brooklyn Museum, MoCADA and Mystic Seaport researching best practice in fundraising and relationship management. In 2016, she became a Museum Association Transformer for her leadership in devising new strategies to diversify the individuals who support art institutions and in 2019 became a Clore Fellow.

mend mariwany is a london-based independent audio producer, filmmaker, researcher and director of bare lit festival. His work covers themes of global conflict, environmental crisis, migration, corruption, culture, history of ideas and food, amongst others. Previously he was editor at skin deep mag and media diversified; and programme manager & head of digital at the mosaic rooms. he has a BAa in international politics, first class (goldsmiths, university of london); MA in postcolonial studies & global policy, distinction (goldsmiths, university of london)

Playwright, Director, Singer/Songwriter, at The Write Network

Joshua Seigal is a highly acclaimed, award-winning professional poet, performer and educator who uses poetry to develop literacy skills and inspire confidence and creativity in communication. He has worked in hundreds of schools, libraries, theatres and festivals around the world, had books published by Bloomsbury and other major publishers, and has written and performed for BBC television. He has a MA in Writing/Education, and undertakes lots of long-term work with various schools. Recent or current positions include: Spoken Word Educator at Plashet School, London (2014-17), Poet in Residence at E-ACT Academies chain (2018-19), Somerset Literary Network (2019-20) Patron of Reading at Fleetville Infant School, Herts (since 2014), St Mary's Catholic Primary, Uxbridge (since 2018), Hallsville Primary School, Newham (since 2018), John Wycliffe School, Leicestershire (since 2018), Bursted Wood Primary, Bexleyheath (since 2018)

Julia Hendricks: from performance poetry to night classes at the City Lit, Julia has taken the scenic route to getting words on the page. Completing the MFA at Kingston represents her commitment to fulfilling her dream of becoming a 'real' writer

Joey Connolly grew up in Sheffield and studied in Manchester. Now he lives in London, where he is the manager of the Poetry Book Fair. His poetry and criticism have appeared in The Poetry Review, Poetry London, The Sunday Times and Best British Poetry 2014 (Salt), as well as on BBC Radio 4. He received an Eric Gregory award in 2012.

Bunmi has worked in the arts and crafts industry. He has a Bachelor's degree focused in Drama/Theatre Arts and Stagecraft from Middlesex University.

Arriving in the U.K. One of the voices I was keen to explore, express and give shape to was my writers voice. I had first begun experimenting with writing for the fun and desire of it a few years earlier and had a couple of rap style poems in my repertoire. Even won a couple of competitions performing them. Titles of these Fresh prince style pieces included “I am Michael Jordan”, “TV and the news (give me the blues)” and “Fela”. These pieces are now long lost as I have faint recollections of the original lyrics and the scraps of paper they were composed on lie somewhere in a recycling heap between Queens Park and Brockley.