London Writers Awards

remember / tidal volume is estimated based on // what’s left in the lung as it closes / remember love is based on tides / as they come in closer

As the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, Jamie was warned by the doctor that due to their underlying health they would not be a priority for critical care treatment. Using the compressed form of a sonnet, they kept rewriting and re-experiencing different voices and identities to explore what it means to face one’s mortality so directly, suddenly, and unexpectedly.

This work became a pamphlet, Shield, following Jamie through the grief of facing death while newly married, and into a place of resilience, resistance, and a commitment to creation against mortality.

i’d rather die  / as i’ve lived as i’ve lived filled with love and / i’d rather die fierce as myself

‘These are arresting, heart-stopping poems lit with a rare intensity. Hale’s poems don’t pull any punches, they explore what it is to live in a body and on the way touch the centre of the fragility deep inside all of us. Humane poems that will make you ache.’ –Mona Arshi

The first book in THE DREAM TEAM series.

‘Exciting, original and heart-warming’ – Jacqueline Wilson

‘Priscilla Mante is an author to watch’ – Aisha Bushby

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A relatable, inclusive story about families, unlikely friendships and girl power. Perfect for fans of Ella on the Outside and Jacqueline Wilson.

Ola! I’m Jasmina Santos-Campbell (but you can call me Jaz). You’ve probably heard of me and my football team the Bramrock Stars before. No? Well, you will soon because we’re almost famous!

Forming the Stars was my genius idea – you see I need to prove to Mae (that’s my mum!) that I’m a football star so she’ll want to come back home.

The idea was the easy part, though. Now I’ve got a team of seven very different girls and we need to work together, to be taken seriously as footballers.

We are the DREAM TEAM and we’re going to show the world that girls CAN play football!

‘These poems unveil an exciting new voice. Niroshini is unafraid to climb the ladder of risk, swerving from the territory of girlhood to the pain of an underexamined past, gently excavating ancestral memory.’ Mona Arshi

‘I read Niroshini’s work, feeling like I’m centre stage about to watch everything unfold. I love how I was brought into history, lived experience and language. The skill in holding the reader, and allowing their imagination to latch on to the story.’ Yomi Ṣode

Everything begins with a kiss       at the plantation       and then a disrobing

Niroshini’s poems live at the intersection of beauty, history and violence. They embody the stillness within the maelstrom required to reclaim oneself from unlawful ownership, from colonial and gender-based trauma. We find ourselves on a rooftop in Colombo, in Neruda’s latrine, submerged in the waters of the Indian Ocean, and on the battlefield with Kali, imagined as a mother in conversation with her daughter. The voices contained within each tableau are tenderly devastating, entreating girls, like the gods, to call out their one thousand and eight names.

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‘Diamond-sharp, timely and urgent‘ Observer, Best Debuts of 2021

‘Subtle, elegant, scorching… The literary debut of the summer’ Vogue

‘I’m full of the hope, on reading it, that this is the kind of book that doesn’t just mark the moment things change, but also makes that change possible’ Ali Smith

‘Exquisite, daring, utterly captivating. A stunning new writer’ Bernardine Evaristo

Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Step out into a world of Go Home vans. Go to Oxbridge, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy a flat. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness. But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going.

The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend’s family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can’t escape the question: is it time to take it all apart?

Assembly is a story about the stories we live within – those of race and class, safety and freedom, winners and losers. And it is about one woman daring to take control of her own story, even at the cost of her life.

‘One of the most talked-about debuts of the year . . . You’ll read it in one sitting’ Sunday Times Style

‘Expertly crafted, remarkable, astonishing… A literary debut with flavours of Jordan Peele’s Get Out‘ Bookseller, Editor’s Choice

‘Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway meets Citizen by Claudia Rankine… As breathtakingly graceful as it is mercilessly true’ Olivia Sudjic

‘Bold and original, with a cool intelligence, and so very truthful about the colonialist structure of British society’ Diana Evans

‘This marvel of a novel manages to say all there is to say about Britain today’ Sabrina Mahfouz

‘Original, thought-provoking and gripping. I was hooked from the beginning and couldn’t put it down’ LIBBY PAGE

‘ The Mismatch transported me back to that feeling of first love and first heartbreak. Enlightening, poignant and romantic’ SOPHIE COUSENS, author of This Time Next Year

‘A powerful love and life story of past and present Iranian experiences in the UK. Beautiful writing and complex, fascinating characters’ HELLY ACTON, author of The Shelf

‘Refreshing and engaging . . . a compelling new voice in contemporary fiction’ LAUREN HO, author of Last Tang Standing

‘Wonderful vibrant characters. [I] absolutely loved it’ KIRSTY CAPES, author of Careless

Soraya knows she could never fall for someone like Magnus. He’s her complete opposite in every way.

Popular and confident, Magnus seems to have his life figured out, while Soraya has got to twenty-one and has somehow never been kissed.

Soraya’s mother Neda also knows what it’s like to feel mismatched. She left Iran with her husband in the wake of revolution, and the aftershocks of that decision are still being felt decades later.

When Soraya sets her sights on Magnus for her first kiss, the last thing she expects to find is first love.

But sometimes the person you least expect might turn out to be the perfect fit . . .

With unforgettable characters at its heart, THE MISMATCH is a pitch-perfect coming-of-age story and a fresh take on how what you think you want isn’t always what brings you happiness.

In 2019, Liam Konemann began collating what he called ‘The Appendix’, a simple record of ongoing transphobia in the UK that he came across in day-to-day life: from the flippant comments of peers to calculated articles and reviews in newspapers. When the list began to take its toll on his mental health, he changed tack by asking different questions: how is beauty in transmasculinity found? And how is it maintained in a transphobic world?

The Appendix, in its new incarnation, begins at the end. Considering the final item on the list, we travel back in time through Liam’s life and his formative experiences on both sides of the globe, and examine the wider hostile climate that trans people face today. In response, focus shifts to celebrate trans joy, the complexities of finding it and, crucially, holding on to it.

Eleanor Penny’s Mercy celebrates and shuttles between the visceral and vulnerable, the cruel and and the kind. It attends to the assumptions we may make about the civilised self, assumptions all too often proven hollow or insubstantial in times of crisis. Mercy is a dizzying yet finely orchestrated menagerie of dark fairytale, biblical allusion and metamorphosis, anchored by a sense of something intimate in every bright detail. A highly anticipated debut.

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Cabbages . . . The Turkish variety are prized for their enlarged leaf bud, that’s where we put the heroin . . .

There’s a stash of heroin waiting to be imported, and no one seems sure what to do with it . . . But Ayla’s a gardener, and she has a plan.

Offering a fresh and funny take on the machinery of the North London heroin trade, Keeping the House lifts the lid on a covert world thriving just beneath notice: not only in McDonald’s queues and men’s clubs, but in spotless living rooms and whispering kitchens. Spanning three generations, this is the story of the women who keep their family – and their family business – afloat, juggling everything from police surveillance to trickier questions of community, belonging and love.

3, 2, 1… sniff deep. A quick rush from sniffing poppers comes to you from the nineteenth century, via ruthless business practices, police raids and a booming online sex subculture.

The story of poppers starts with experiments on frogs legs and the Victorian doctor who first found a use for amyl nitrite in relieving angina pain. It moves through the development of the pharmaceutical industry in the twentieth century, the capitalist creation of the “ideal” gay male, a raid on the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in 1986, and the porn supercuts that encourage viewers to “goon out” online.

This book is not just a history. It is a collection of fresh and provocative ideas about identity, sex, capitalism, law, freedom and the bodies that we use to experience the world. And it explores the startling connections between Victorian infirmaries, Studio 54 and cam sex subcultures. Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures tells the tale of a drug and uncovers the queer potential inside us all.

Twelve-year-old Luke Smith-Sharma shovels coal under a half-bombed, blackened power station. With his best friend Ravi he keeps his head down, hoping to one day earn his freedom and return to his family, while avoiding the wrath of the evil Tabatha Margate. When he tries to help new girl Jess, Luke is punished and sent to clean the sewers of the haunted East Wing, a place from which few return.

Whilst serving his punishment, Luke realises he can see things others can’t in the Power Station: ghostly things . He befriends a ghost-girl called Alma, who can ride clouds through the night sky and bend their shape to her will. But when Luke discovers the terrible truth of why Tabatha Margate is kidnapping children and forcing them to work in the power station, Alma agrees to help him and his friends escape. Will Alma convince the mysterious ghost council to help their cause? And can Luke find his voice, while trying to find a way home?

Marvin is an ordinary boy who loves spending time with Grandpa, reading comics, and making science experiments with his best friend Joe. But everything changes when he discovers a mysterious superhero suit hidden in the attic . . . to his amazement, Marvin learns that he is next in a long line of superheroes. Now the time has come to meet his destiny!

When the Science Fair is thrown into chaos by super-villain Mastermind and her giant robot, Marvin is the only one who can stop them. Will Marvin be brave enough to step into his power-and into his superhero suit-to become the great and marvellous superhero Marv?

The first book in a powerful series of one boy’s journey to unlock the superhero within.

Poetry Book Society Summer 2022 Pamphlet Choice

‘This is a unique collection of poems so full of heart, humour and ache.’ Rachel Long

‘Helen Bowell’s The Barman is as funny and good as it is precise, at home in the interstices between cultures and TV channels, chips and chip grease, romance and boredom.’ Will Harris

Helen Bowell and The Barman are a relationship from which you won’t easily look away. This debut pamphlet is a sharp, witty exploration of the nuances of a sometimes reluctant codependency. At times it feels like you are the third housemate, unashamedly pressing your ear to the wall to hear conversations as intimate as they are absurd. Bowell deftly interrogates what it means to feel both othered and adored, comfortable and wary. The Barman is an introduction to a poetic voice unique in its ability to subtly express its desires, leaving enough room for the reader to find parts of themself in the world it creates.

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Five years since his daughter’s death. Now it’s happening again.

‘The Next to Die is a remarkably assured debut. It oozes the sour tang of authenticity, mingling psychiatry and crime with the mean streets of London.’ Andrew Taylor

Dylan Kasper is stuck. Living in self-imposed reclusion from his former life in the police, he’s been in a downward spiral since his daughter’s death five years ago.

All that changes when the son of an esteemed professor jumps under an inner-city train. His former colleagues call it suicide, but Kasper knows different. This has all happened before – to him, and his dead daughter.

Taking on the investigation himself, Kasper soon realises the terrible trouble young Tommy had found himself in. With nowhere to run, he thought suicide was the only way to keep his family safe.

But before long, Kasper’s investigation makes him target number one. Can he keep his demons in check and stay alive long enough to bring those responsible to justice?

‘A joy to read, a full universe of feeling, an effortless page-turner by a born storyteller. One Small Voice is the great contemporary middle class Indian novel, showing us ordinary people knocked about by the specific sociopolitical currents of turn-of-the-century India, but also wrestling with universal challenges of family, ambition, friendship and shame’ Max Porter, author of The Death of Francis Bacon

India, 1992. The country is ablaze with riots. In Lucknow, ten-year-old Shubhankar witnesses a terrible act of mob violence in which his family are complicit: an act that will alter the course of his life.

In the two decades that follow, Shabby must wrestle with the ghosts of his past, the expectations of his family, and the seismic shifts taking place around him as the country enters the new millennium. As an adult in Mumbai, he encounters Syed and Shruti, who, like him, are seeking the freedom to rewrite their stories while navigating the contradictions of modern India. As the rising tide of nationalism sweeps across the country, their friendship becomes a rock they all cling to.

Until one day, Shabby makes a split-second decision that will change everything…

Dazzling and deeply moving, One Small Voice is a novel of modern India: of violence and prejudice, friendship and loyalty, community and tradition, and of a young man coming of age in a country on fire.

‘Funny, sharp and tender, McPherson brings great insight to the struggle to reconcile where we’ve come from with who we want to be.’

Diana Reid, author of Love & Virtue and Seeing Other People​

Sam is struggling to find her place at university. There are so many parts of her that don’t seem to fit – her family doesn’t understand her new life, and her new friends don’t know the secrets that she carries with her: the sudden death of her father, her brother’s trouble with the law, and her sense that she feels things that make her different.

That changes when a lecturer introduces Sam to Julia, his charming wife and a corporate lawyer who agrees to mentor Sam through law school. Their closeness provides a way for Sam to understand who she is, and who she wants to become.

With time, this unspools into a dynamic of mutual preoccupation and boundary crossing, as they navigate their feelings for one another, the appropriateness of their relationship, and where it might be heading.

Higher Education is a story about identity, intellectualism and class, and the transformative power of education from an exceptional new voice in Australian literary fiction.

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‘Being Black British is more than an identity, it is a journey into uncharted waters of personal history. Alexis Keir’s deeply moving account will ring true for all of those navigating their own stories.’ David Lammy

‘It took two decades for me to go in search of the parts of myself I had left behind in the Caribbean. What ghosts were waiting for me there? There was a thick, black journal in my flat, stuffed with letters, postcards, handwritten notes and diary entries. For the first time in years, I opened it.’

Twenty years after living there as a child, Alexis Keir returns to the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent. He is keen to uncover lost memories and rediscover old connections. But he also carries with him the childhood scars of being separated from his parents and put into uncaring hands.

Inspired by the embrace of his relatives in the Caribbean, Alexis begins to unravel the stories of others who left Saint Vincent, searching through diary pages and newspaper articles, shipping and hospital records and faded photographs. He uncovers tales of exploitation, endeavour and bravery of those who had to find a home far away from where they were born.

A child born with vitiligo, torn from his mother’s arms to be exhibited as a showground attraction in England; a woman who, in the century before the Windrush generation, became one of the earliest Black nurses to be recorded as working in a London hospital; a young boy who became a footman in a Yorkshire stately home. And Alexis’s mother, a student nurse who arrives in 1960s London, ready to start a new life in a cold, grey country – and the man from her island whom she falls in love with.

From the Caribbean to England, North America and New Zealand, from windswept islands to the rainy streets of London, and spanning generations of travellers from the 19th century to the present, Windward Family takes you inside the beating heart of a Black British family, separated by thousands of miles but united by love, loss and belonging.

A luminous, boldly imagined debut novel about three Vietnamese siblings who seek refuge in the UK, expanding into a sweeping meditation on love, ancestry, and the power of storytelling

There are the goodbyes and then the fishing out of the bodies–everything in between is speculation.

After the last American troops leave Vietnam, siblings Anh, Thanh, and Minh begin a perilous journey to Hong Kong with the promise that their parents and younger siblings will soon follow. But when tragedy strikes, the three children are left orphaned, and sixteen-year-old Anh becomes the caretaker for her two younger brothers overnight.

In the years that follow, Anh and her brothers resettle in the UK and confront their new identities as refugees, first in overcrowded camps and resettlement centers and then, later, in a modernizing London plagued by social inequality and raging anti-immigrant sentiment. Anh works in a clothing factory to pay their bills. Minh loiters about with fellow unemployed high school dropouts. Thanh, the youngest, plays soccer with his British friends after class. As they mature, each sibling reckons with survivor’s guilt, unmoored by their parents’ absence. With every choice they make, their paths diverge further, until it’s unclear if love alone can keep them together.

Told through lyrical narrative threads, historical research, voices from lost family, and notes by an unnamed narrator determined to chart their fate, Wandering Souls captures the lives of a family marked by war and loss yet relentless in the pursuit of a better future. With urgency and precision, it affirms that the most important stories are those we claim for ourselves, establishing Cecile Pin as a masterful new literary voice.

Verge is a devastatingly funny and richly imagined road-trip novel set in a perilous and xenophobic near-future Britain where the island has fractured into individual counties and ancient magical practices are once more ascendant. The day that Rowena Murray was born two-hundred-and-fifty starlings fell out of the sky, and ever since she’s been marked by ill-fortune.

First came the visions, then her boyfriend dropped dead. Now death has taken her father, too. Salvation, Rowena’s mother says, lies to the North in Culcrith, where her grandmother can save her from the curse. Her mother’s farmhand, a young Egyptian man named Halim, is to drive Rowena through multiple checkpoints and borders, across a mysterious and treacherous landscape inhabited by people who have married old traditions with intensified prejudices.

The trip isn’t easy: Rowena is spiky, obsessive, and sees Death everywhere, while Halim is uptight and quiet, with demons of his own. What begins as a battle of wills between the two develops into an alliance, and perhaps something more… if only they can let their guard down and let the wild in.

A fun, fresh and fast-paced series based on African mythology, YOMI is an adventure full of heart and humour.

Yomi and her younger brother Kayode are supposed to be on the trip of a lifetime visiting The Gambia with their Uncle Olu. Instead, their uncle’s work has made this the most boring holiday ever! But when Yomi witnesses the Dragon King, Ninki Nanka, being kidnapped from the sky, things get a lot more exciting. Determined to save him, Yomi and Kayode uncover secrets and meet many magnificent beasts – but will it be enough Ninki Nanka?

BEAST QUEST meets Pokémon, the series is perfect for fans of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, FUTURE HERO and DRAGON MOUNTAIN.

London, 2019

It’s the hottest June on record, and a whale is stuck in the Thames. In the streets of the city, four old acquaintances want more from life than they’ve been given…

Maggie is thirty, pregnant, and broke. She and her boyfriend, Ed, are moving back to their hometown of Basildon because they can’t afford to raise a child in London. Maggie has mixed feelings about abandoning her beloved adopted city, and wonders if having a baby will be the last spontaneous act of her life.

Ed, a bike courier, has been obsessed with death since his father passed away earlier that year. He can’t wait to settle down with Maggie, but she doesn’t know about his past cruising train station toilets for men to have sex with, or that he has a history with her best friend, Phil.

Phil hates his office job and is living for the weekend. He lives in an illegal warehouse commune and is in an intense relationship with his housemate, Keith. Phil has had intimacy issues ever since a traumatic incident years ago, but with Keith he is learning to enjoy love and sex again. There’s only one problem: Keith already has a boyfriend, Spyro, and Phil isn’t sure if there is room for one more in their relationship.

Meanwhile, Phil’s mother, Roseleen is travelling to London to tell Phil that she been diagnosed with cancer. Faced with illness, she’s wondering whether she will ever feel like the main character in her own story, and can’t stop thinking about Pauline, a ‘friend’ she left behind in another city, long, long ago.

By the end of one sweltering weekend, their relationships to each other and themselves will have transformed beyond recognition, and their previous understandings of the words ‘home’ and ‘family’ will be shattered and assembled anew.

…But amidst all this turmoil, what has a whale got to do with it all?

By day, Rita Marsh is an ordinary small business owner running her late parents’ care home, caring for the elderly and infirm. By night, she’s a vigilante, posing as a young girl online. She snares the men who try to prey on her, exposing them for what they are. She’s a force for good in a country whose justice system is crumbling.

Rita has successfully kept her two lives separate for years, but when an old classmate returns from her past to tell her a years-old secret, her two worlds start to collide. With both of her selves unravelling, Rita will have to choose between justice and vengeance. Will she remain a protector – or become someone to fear?

Only Here, Only Now tells the story of Cora, a young girl making her way through the maze that is teenage life in post-industrial Scotland.

Travelling between Muircross, Abbotscraig and Glasgow in the mid 1990s, we are given the total privilege, delight and heartbreak of sitting on Cora’s shoulder as she makes the journey from uncomfortable teenager to capable young woman.

Meticulously researched, Only Here, Only Now introduces a character and a view on the world that we haven’t had the opportunity to see before. Neurodivergent himself, Tom’s depiction of Cora as a young girl living with ADHD is deeply compassionate, nuanced and authentic.

Profoundly necessary in the current climate, Only Here, Only Now is a story filled with humour, honesty, and an abundance of love – found often in the most surprising of places.

Alex Blank is a writer based in London, currently completing her English BA at King’s College London. Her writing has appeared in publications such as HuffPost UK, Blue Marble Review, Breath & Shadow, Litbreak Magazine and Bad Pony Mag, and she’s also a Culture Editor at Roar News. In her writing, she is dedicated to normalising the neurodivergent subjectivity, exploring the nature of want – wanting too much, in the wrong ways, want as a means or an end – and the psychic and material repercussions of it, as well as finding new ways of writing human relationships into being in all their confusion and complexity. 

Alex says: “Ever since I started writing, completing a novel has always been in the back of my mind. Participating in London Writers Awards, then, is an invaluable opportunity for my development as a writer, and for finding the focus and direction in my current long-form project. I am incredibly excited to work hard and experiment with my writing, as well as to support other writers in their journeys, and I’m grateful for being able to learn as much as I can with the support of the programme.”

Alka is a writer from London, who works for the NHS part-time. She was inspired to write her first YA novel after attending creative writing classes at City Lit three years ago. She hasn’t looked back since, gaining a place as a mentee on the Megaphone Writer Development Scheme and on the HarperCollins Author Academy. She is drawn to writing about young adults due to her time working as a voluntary counsellor at ChildLine, where she re-encountered the challenges this time of life presents. In her spare time she enjoys walking in nature, bird-watching and writing poetry. She fell in love with fiction as a teen. Back then, it was impossible to find a protagonist from underrepresented communities in the books she read. Now she is writing the fiction she wanted to read as a child, and is excited by the opportunity to empower young people of all backgrounds. 

Alka says:

“Spread the Word has been an important part of my journey since 2018, when I won a City of Stories award. I’m thrilled to achieve the LWA at this point in my writing life to expand my support system of wonderful fellow writers and gain a foothold in the publishing industry. I look forward to learning from their inspiration and feedback, and collaborating with program tutors, mentors, and industry professionals.”

Amelia is a Primary School teacher, living and working in East London. Reading with her Year 5 class last year, she fell back in love with the magic of children’s literature. She saw how, without that first spark, children are quick to disconnect from a book. But, if hooked, they enter the story with unyielding empathy, furnishing it with a unique imaginative vibrancy. It was the thrill of recognising this that pushed her to try and write her own middle grade adventure. Prior to teaching, Amelia worked as a freelance researcher on projects for UNICEF and WWF, and then as a project development officer for an NGO in Madagascar. Amelia also studied Philosophy at Cambridge University, which is where she first encountered the thought problems concerning personal identity that The Light Above the Ocean draws on. 

Amelia says: “I am absolutely thrilled to be part of the London Writers Awards. As a relatively new writer with a freshly finished first draft, I am so grateful for both the support and structure that the programme offers. I’m eager to learn as much as possible, and am particularly excited to become part of a writing community. Receiving this award has been a real boost to my self confidence, encouraging me to believe in the possibility of my work and continue writing, editing and redrafting.”

Aparna is a Sri Lankan Tamil writer living in London. In 2020, her work was shortlisted for the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize in the fiction category. She holds a B.A. in English and an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering, both from Stanford University.  

Aparna says: “I am so grateful for this opportunity. It can be challenging to write in a silo,  and to find the time to write, to feel confident prioritising one’s writing, and to know where to find support and guidance. I’m so thrilled that I’ll have the structure and mentorship of the LWA writing community, and I can’t wait to meet my cohort.“

Chris is a queer disabled writer who lives in London. He is fanatical about crime fiction and likes to use the genre as a vehicle to depict the things he’s passionate about. As an NHS nurse with a hidden disability, Chris is eager to interweave the untold stories of sick, dying and disabled people into psychological thrillers and smash the trope of the passive disabled character. Chris is a past winner of the Writing East Midlands flash fiction competition. A piece of his writing about nursing was read out on the Radio 4 PM Show. He has a short story being published in TOKEN magazine. He previously wrote a weekly column for an LGBTQ+ lifestyle magazine and was a theatre reviewer for a London website. When he’s not writing, Chris can be found working as a nurse specialist, reading compulsively or walking his high maintenance poodle around South East London. 

Chris says: “I’ve been writing in a solitary echo chamber of one and I’m delighted to have the opportunity to share my work with other writers from underrepresented groups. I’m eager to have coaching and tuition in the craft of writing and in the publishing industry. I’m looking forward to having the chance to read exciting new writing from other writers.”

Felicity has lived in London since 2007 and works in financial services. As a student, her story The Oldest Tale was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and she was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year. She holds a MA in Mathematics from Cambridge University, where she was awarded the college poetry prize and acted in Footlights. Since then, she has been writing for fun: travel diaries, a football podcast, song lyrics, and an unpublished novel, The City of Sorrows (a dystopian thriller set in 2032 austerity-ravaged London). Last year she started writing poems for her children (Make Like a Tree and Leave was shortlisted for Penguin WriteNow 2021 and commended for Faber’s FAB Prize 2021). Greene & Heaton selected The Labelled Bones for a short mentorship in 2021 (The GreeneDoor Project), and it has been shortlisted for Hachette’s Grow Your Story 2022. 

FQ says:

“I’d encourage anyone to submit to writing competitions, because let’s be clear – submitting to any award is an act of courage. And so is writing. It’s taken me a long time to find my voice as a writer: at work I’m trained to be careful, ensuring that everything I say is in line with our house views. And at home, I’m used to watching my words in front of my daughters, since they always get used against me(!) I’d heard about Spread the Word through an interview with an exciting new novelist, who developed her book through the London Writers Awards scheme. For someone like me, a total outsider to publishing, the opportunity to learn from industry experts and connect with other writers on such a prestigious programme seemed like a near-impossible dream. 

So, being selected for the programme has been an enormous encouragement already. Putting your words out there, you feel tremendously vulnerable. But being selected – it feels like being heard, in the most unexpected and wonderful way. And I can’t wait to see how the conversation continues… “

Ijeoma is a Northern writer living in South London. She is an alumna of Spread the Word’s The Future is Back: Black Teacher’s Edition creative writing programme, led by Olumide Popoola, and features in the zine ‘seedhead’ created by the group. In 2021, she was shortlisted in Spread the Word’s One More Chapter novel chapter feedback scheme. Since studying Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, Ijeoma has spent five years working in various admin and communications roles. She writes short stories and personal essays in her free time, some of which can be found on her blog ‘mend again the necklace of my days’. Ijeoma’s main project ‘The river’ explores family, duty, friendship, queerness and Igbo mythology. It also features the occasional dad joke. 

Ijeoma says: “I’m incredibly excited to receive a 2022 London Writers Award for commercial fiction. I look forward to being a part of the Spread the Word community and getting to know other writers through the programme as we develop our craft. I know this experience will take me further on my writing journey and help me make progress on my main project, ‘The river’.”

Hookz (she/her) is a London-based writer, who holds a B.A. (Hons) in Creative Writing. After working as a travel consultant for years, casually writing prose, poetry and screenplays, on the side, Hookz turned her eye to Film and TV. She took up work as a Runner, Assistant Producer and Creative Assistant on music video shoots. Also assisting startups with Logo Designs, Editing and Proof Reading, while creating her own Fantasy and Science Fiction projects. Hookz enjoys exploring a wide scope of spiritual systems. Often intertwining the fascination with politics, through her work. She writes as a means to explore the depths of her imagination, theories and concepts, integrating them with real world issues. She is currently adapting a TV pilot, into what will be her first novel. 

Hookz says:

“Being accepted on to the London Writers Awards programme means the world to me, as someone who has been searching for the support to develop her craft. It’s a chance to not only connect with other writers, but gain valuable insights from professional authors, agents and publishers, providing the best opportunity to polish my project and build a solid foundation to launch my writing career.”

Jenny Newman is a writer and creative based in London, UK. She has a Master’s degree in Analytical Aesthetics from University of Bristol and currently works at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. A founding organiser of queer party Traumfrau, she has been commissioned to create visuals for a number of events and artists including Sabrina Chap and Rubyyy Jones. Her art has been featured in Contemporary Collage Magazine and the Queer Zine Library’s online exhibition ‘Message in a Bottle’. As well as creating, Jenny is interested in traditions of storytelling and the politics of who gets to share their history, and how. Writing under the alias Parker Cassel, the name is a tribute to her grandmothers and their legacy.  

Jenny says: “Applying for the London Writers Awards was a serious move towards owning and embracing my identity as a writer; finding out I had been successful was a moment I’ll never forget. To have my work taken seriously and to be told that my story is worth sharing has already been an incredible experience. It’s taken a few years for me to feel confident enough to share my writing, and I’m proud to have had my potential recognised through this Award. I’m excited and daunted by the prospect of what comes next, but absolutely ready to make the most of this fantastic opportunity.” 

Joe Rizzo-Naudi has a degree in English Literature and Language from King’s College London and an MA in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths College. His writing has been published in Ink, Sweat and Tears and the Times of Malta, and his MA portfolio was shortlisted for the Pat Kavanagh Prize. His film, theatre and performance work has been exhibited at the BFI Southbank, the Vault Festival, Rich Mix and the ICA. He was born in the Hebrides and grew up in Aberdeenshire and Buckinghamshire before moving to London as a student. He works as a teacher and lives in Lewisham. 

Joe says: “The Awards are a great opportunity for writers to learn from and support each other, and that’s especially valuable when writing from a marginalised background or exploring under-represented themes. I get a lot of energy from being part of creative communities, and I’m looking forward to channelling that energy into my writing and my participation on the programme.”

Kayleigh Cassidy is a writer, comedian, improviser, poet and collage artist who lives in London. Her work has been published in TOKEN, 3:AM, Rollick, MIR Online, Visual Verse, Underground Overground and Erotoplasty. She was long listed for the MIR Folktale award in 2019 with her short story, Pomegranate and the Search for Summer. She uses art to explore her neurodiversity’s: a platform for her queer expression. She has a podcast called How to Survive your Life and regularly hosts bilingual comedy night, French it Up. Kayleigh is part of the sell out, 5* comedy show, Crime Scene Improvisation. Kayleigh is currently training to be a primary school teacher and loves the moon full, half or gibbous. 

Kayleigh says: “As a working-class writer, I’ve found having confidence in my art incredibly difficult. I never felt like I was good enough and often felt alienated from the publishing world. It’s great that Spread the Word acknowledges the struggle marginalised writers face, and I am sooooo excited about the opportunity. I’m thrilled, to be given the London Writer’s Award. Being part of the programme means I can grow and develop in a supportive environment and FINALLY get my book on the shelf. I want to be a writer and this is an excellent chance for me to make it happen. Also, my lovely lil mum and granny are gunna be so proud of me.” 

Keah-Lily was born and raised in London and works as a Wellbeing Manager and freelance journalist, with by-lines in DIVA, Guap, Writeous and Heroica. Keah studied Psychology as her undergraduate degree and completed her Masters in Clinical Psychology & Health Services, focusing her dissertation on Youth Violence in London, from a public health perspective, as opposed to a criminal justice one. Currently working on her first novel Melamix which gained her shortlisting for a 2022 London Writers Award for Commercial Fiction. She loves a good fiction novel and favourite book is Small Island by Andrea Levy and has drawn inspiration from Levy’s writing styles. 

Keah says: “Being part of the programme has given me a renewed boost of energy and motivation to complete my first novel.” 

Kiana is an aspiring children’s author, with a love for laugh-your-socks-off books. Her stories aim to provide a funny fantasy world children can escape into. Born and raised in Manchester, Kiana will always be a Mancunian at heart, despite having spent the last 10 years down south. At university, Kiana studied Geography with a focus on past landscapes, which led her to thinking about what future landscapes might look like. With this in mind, she began a series of short stories which evolved into her debut novel. This story was shortlisted for the Penguin Random House Write Now in 2021, won a place on the Harper Collins Author Academy 2021 and selected as a reader favourite for the 2021 Novel-In-Development Award from WriterMentor. When not writing, she can be found using her metal detector, at comedy gigs and batch cooking curries that are too spicy for her! 

Kiana says: “Being given this award is such a privilege. I am especially excited to be a part of the feedback groups and support other writers with their work. There is nothing quite like reading unpublished scripts and then seeing that work come to fruition. I hope the programme will also help me gain confidence in approaching industry gatekeepers and in presenting my work in the best way possible.”

Lena (she/her) is a writer based in London, and has also lived in Sri Lanka, Libya and the United States. She has written non-fiction on art, borders and surveillance, but her true love is prose fiction and her first short story, ‘Skin’ was published in ‘Outsiders’ in 2020 (3 of Cups Press). In 2019 she was a member of Spread the Word’s Future is Back, and has since been a part of a regular writers’ workshop where she has had the opportunity to hone her voice. Lena is the co-founder of South Asian Community Care, a collective that seeks to support South Asian communities with mental health and creative workshops. She is currently working on a short story collection that explores colonialism, violence and constructions of race. 

Lena says: “The London Writers Award has given me a much-needed boost of confidence. I’m looking forward to completing my collection alongside writers who have a shared dedication to their craft, learning from each other in our critical feedback sessions, and I am excited to build community with them. I’m also looking forward to learning the ins and outs of the industry better with the support of agents, publishers and other industry professionals.” 

Lizzie Clark is a born and bred Londoner who began a regular creative writing practice in 2019, attending classes with the City Lit. She is now working on her first novel, drawing on her family’s Jewish working-class roots to examine how immigrant communities and their subsequent generations navigate their way through British society. The novel also explores roles and expectations for women and sexual attitudes in the mid-20th century. Lizzie has a background in communications for the charity sector and has written on topics ranging from Anglo-Saxon treasure to astrophysics. She has used her writing skills to give voice to those with stories to tell from bereaved military families to couples trying to adopt. She was shortlisted for the Jewish Book Week Emerging Writers Programme in 2021. She lives in North London with her husband and two children. 

Lizzie says: “Receiving a London Writer’s Award means that after twenty years of quietly writing on behalf of others, I can finally stop feeling shy about calling myself a writer and just get on with telling the story that is kicking and screaming to get out. Thanks to Spread the Word I am absolutely bowled over by this opportunity to get expert help and guidance towards my goal of publication. I can’t wait to meet my fellow travellers on this incredible journey.”

Lorraine is an aspiring writer based in London, trained in anthropology and journalism. Born and raised in Hong Kong as the city transitioned from British to Chinese rule under a ‘One Country, Two Systems’ policy, she mostly spoke Cantonese but wrote in English at home, school, or work; the hybrid environment shaped her values, accent, and much else. Reading Enid Blyton, J.K. Rowling, and Somerset Maugham as a child and teenager, she dreamed of becoming a writer. She studied journalism, politics, and art history at the University of Hong Kong, then worked in the arts administration and social impact/philanthropy sectors. In the wake of the political turmoil that shook Hong Kong in 2019-2020, she completed an MSc Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She hopes to tell stories that record, move, connect, and perhaps, help to reshape how we see ourselves and the world. 

Lorraine says:  “As a child I had dreamed of becoming a writer, but this I put aside as the pressures of school and humdrum of work set in. As I rediscover creative writing and find myself at the crossroads of career (and life) choices, the London Writers Award comes as an immense honour and timely encouragement. The guidance and companionship it offers will support me in pursuing a creative path – a journey as nerve-racking as it is exciting – and in telling the stories of migration from Hong Kong to Britain at a juncture which may be historically significant for both societies.”

Mark O’Brien grew up in Leeds where he used to work in local community television, producing documentaries and magazine shows, winning a Royal Television Society One To Watch Award, and even getting a tattoo on-screen with the words “Made in Leeds” to show for it. He now lives in South London and works in broadcasting in the Houses of Parliament. As well as the stereotypically bad teenage novel he once wrote, Mark has written features for several newspapers and magazines, working with publications as far afield as Reykjavik and Beijing, and back home in Yorkshire. At time of writing, he has no plans for another tattoo. 

Mark says: “I’m thrilled and ever so slightly daunted to be given a London Writers Award. What the programme has achieved in just a few short years is remarkable, and to be counted among the number of debut authors it has unearthed is a privilege. It’s reassuring firstly to know that someone somewhere has read my 2a.m. scribblings and thinks they’re of sufficient quality to see the light of day! To now have this opportunity to develop my work along with talented, passionate writers is something I will make the most of. Back when I was a chubby ginger only-child writing silly stories in my bedroom, I’d have been overjoyed if you’d told me then that I’d end up winning a London Writers Award!”

Mayo Agard-Olubo is a writer and poet based in London. His poems have been published in numerous anthologies including the Men of Words anthology (2015) by United Press as well as Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (2021) by Civic Leicester. In 2021 he was selected as one of eleven writers out of seven hundred and fifty applicants to be part of “A Writing Chance”, a programme created by Michael Sheen and New Writing North to discover and develop new writers from underrepresented backgrounds. In the same year he had an unpublished picture book manuscript longlisted for the inaugural Jericho prize and had an article published in the New Statesman. In 2022 he received a place on the HarperCollins Author Academy programme. He loves dreaming up fantastical worlds and sending characters on amazing adventures. He is currently working on a YA novel. 

Mayo says: “I feel greatly honoured to receive a London Writers Award. It gives me an absolutely massive confidence boost to know that the award judges and the team at Spread the Word see such strong potential in the novel I am currently working on. The programme is an amazing opportunity to learn from and work with a number of supremely talented writers and it is structured perfectly to help me complete my current work in progress. I am very excited to have been chosen and even more excited about where this award can lead.”

Mel is a queer trans nonbinary writer who started writing poetry as a child growing up in Cambridgeshire. After studying English Literature at the University of Bristol, they moved to London to work in an art gallery, eventually moving into alternative education to teach English to SEN students. It wasn’t until a few years ago that Mel discovered LGBTQIA+ young adult fiction, and they were moved by the radical hope and joy in the stories they read. They began work on their queer YA fantasy novel last year. When they aren’t writing, you will most likely find them drinking coffee, swimming or geeking out on folklore. 

Mel says: “Being given a London Writers Award has been an enormous confidence boost for me as a first-time novelist. It has strengthened my sense of hope for the future of trans writing in the UK, and how it can thrive despite the pervasive hostility which can sometimes feel overwhelming. To be able to access the level of support which this programme facilitates is life-changing, and for the first time I dare to dream of a career as a writer.“

Monica is a writer and lawyer living in east London. She is currently working on a collection of short stories set in her hometown of Hong Kong. Monica’s poetry has been commended by Ambit Magazine’s poetry competition.  In her spare time, Monica teaches mahjong and is one sixth of Dinner Party Press, a literary events collective. 

Monica says: “Growing up I was always told to focus on a career that would provide stability, and that writing was not an option for me. It is a huge confidence boost to be chosen for a London Writer’s Award and to feel that there is support and interest in my writing.  

It has made the late nights and early mornings spent writing totally worth it.  I’m so grateful for the opportunity to spend the next ten months developing my writing project alongside other writers and gaining insight into the industry.”

Nadège started writing when she was 16 and living in a hostel in Birmingham. Through writing, she made sense of the things happening around her. Writing led her to London, to a degree in creative writing and philosophy, to teaching young people marginalised from mainstream education and a deep love of singing. She currently works as the assistant facilitator and director for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) Youth Company and Visiting Project Associate for Young Vic Taking Part. In her writing, she explores generational trauma and the parallels between collective and individual experiences of overcoming. 

Nadège says: “Being given a London Writers Award is like being given a badge of trust. Knowing that multiple people read my writing and agreed that there is something special about it gives me the confidence to keep going. Receiving the award has given me hope that writing can continue to not only work wonders in my personal life but in my career too.”

Oisín is a writer and performer, working in theatre, video, and fiction. His work has been supported by Arts Council England, and he has worked with the BBC, ICA, DAZED, Hackney Showroom, The Abbey Theatre, Dublin Fringe Festival, Project Arts Centre and more. He writes about love, money, health and history. He’s interested in the ways that political, economic and social conditions shape how we act, think, and feel at particular places and times. He’s interested in exploring the mundane details of people’s daily lives to try to tell a bigger story about the world. 

Oisín says: “Being given a London Writers Award is a huge step for me in my career. I’ve been trying to build a long-term practice as a writer for nearly ten years while working various other jobs for money. I’ve made progress, but it’s been in small increments. I hope the London Writers Award will be a catalyst for me to break into the world of publishing in a sustainable way.”

Rachel is a Director of MigrationWork CIC, which helps communities, policymakers and practitioners respond to migration in evidence-based ways. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and has worked on issues of migrant integration, inequality and structural disadvantage for nearly two decades. She has held expert/ advisory positions for the UK Parliament and the European Commission and is currently a member of the Scottish Government’s Expert Advisory Group on Migration and Population. She has published extensively in these areas and her commentary has often featured in the mainstream press. Writing fiction is a relatively new endeavour for Rachel, but in 2021, her novel-in-progress was shortlisted for the Spotlight First Novel Award, the New Voices First Novel Award, and the Stylist Prize for Feminist Fiction. In 2022, she is determined to get it finished and out into the world. 

Rachel says: “It’s a real privilege to be an awardee of the London Writers Awards 2022. I’m excited to be part of such a talented cohort of writers and a unique programme that is committed to diversifying the kinds of stories that we read and hear.”

Becka lives in south-east London, half-an-hour down the road from where she grew up. She works in campaigns at a human rights organisation, and in communications at a London university. Before that, she spent many years subtitling live news on TV. Becka is a loud, proud feminist, and mum to two young critical thinkers. Language is her first true (non-human) love. In 2021 she was selected to be part of New Writing North’s ‘A Writing Chance’ programme, supported by Michael Sheen. Her writing has since been published in the New Statesman. 

Becka says: “Being given a London Writers Award is the opportunity of a lifetime. It will give me the structure, guidance and support that I really need in order to take my writing further. I can’t wait to start this steep learning curve with a new writing community. I’m familiar with the names and words of several LWAs alumni, and am overjoyed (and slightly daunted) that I’m about to follow the same journey. I’m proud to be associated with Spread the Word, which invests so much in voices that wouldn’t otherwise be heard or nurtured.” 

SJ Lyon is a London based writer and advocate with both Lebanese and British origins. She has a background in the charity and voluntary sector, frequently working with marginalised groups. Her writing, in fiction and memoir, focuses on the state of ‘otherness’ and exploring the vulnerability and underestimated strength at the heart of it.  In fiction and memoir she navigates the complexities of cultural identity, sexuality, gender, trauma, history and politics with the enduring need to be seen and heard for who we are. 

SJ says: “I’m looking forward to joining forces with the other LWA writers this year. I’m excited and curious to see how we challenge and change each other, to read what we write. I’m feeling grateful to Spread the Word for being such a powerhouse of validation and support to me and other developing writers having doubts about ourselves and what should and shouldn’t be written. The LWA programme will help me allow my story to be the one that it truly wants to be.”

Sharon Sylvan is born and raised in London to Caribbean parents. Her favourite book genres are crime fiction (James Patterson) and personal development. Sharon’s childhood was spent reading, writing short stories and in writing in her journal (apart from playing outside!). She has been writing for some years but kept all her work locked away and then enrolled on short courses in Creative Writing. Her passion for writing was reignited in 2021, when realising time waits for no one. When she is not writing, Sharon’s day job is a Career Consultant in higher education, helping undergraduates and postgraduates in their career journey. Sharon is keen on continuous personal development and learning and not setting any limits or restrictions on herself. 

Sharon says: “A London Writers Award for me means so much to me. Being given the opportunity to be in a safe environment and space with people like myself where we can support each other, share ideas, network, and learn. This is a chance for me to gain new knowledge, skills, and an understanding of what it means to write professionally and to learn from experts in this field. This award enables me to pursue and persist to organise my own learning and absorb information, as an individual and in a group. Furthermore, this gives me the purpose of achieving personal fulfilment.”

Tia Bannon is an actor and artist from Ladbroke Grove, London. She trained at RADA. Some of her many hobbies include rollerskating, travelling and learning the word butterfly in as many languages as possible. She is an alumna of the Faber Academy’s Introduction to Fiction course, a place for which she was awarded on merit. Alongside non-fiction she enjoys writing poetry, fiction and scripts. HoodRat is her writing debut. 

Tia says: “I am excited to develop my craft and community with the support of Spread the Word and the London Writers Awards. I’ve been a long time admirer of Spread the Word’s mission and I’m so thrilled to now be a part of it.”

Tomek Mossakowski is a writer and professional baker living in Peckham. A gay, second-generation Polish immigrant who’s moved around the world, he writes stories about people seeking a sense of belonging. His work has been shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Award two years in a row, and has been published in The Moth. He began work on his YA novel, Ideal Me, as a way of understanding his own anxieties. An avid reader of YA, sci-fi and literary novels, Tomek loves nothing more than a story that hasn’t been told before. When not writing, he’s sweating onions in the kitchen, or pampering his Whippet called Kip. 

Tomek says: “I’m over the moon and stuck in orbit to receive a London Writers Award. My stories have been gestating my whole life, and this is a huge step forward in getting them out there. I’ve always seen writing as a collaborative practice, and I can’t wait to connect with other like-minded writers to move our projects along. I want to champion our stories, to be pushed hard, and to give something back to this incredible city we live in.”

Ulka Karandikar spent her early childhood living across three different continents, moving between exotic locations such as Dar-es-Salaam, Mumbai, and Merthyr Tydfil. Her work has been shortlisted for the 2021 Owned Voices Novel Award, long listed for the 2020 SI Leeds Literary Prize and her prizewinning short story ‘Mr Kohli’s Carpets’ was published as part of The 2021 Creative Future Anthology ‘Essential’. Her writing will also appear in the 2022 Fox and Windmill anthology of contemporary British South Asian work, alongside Saima Mir and Sairish Hussain. 

Ulka says: ‘I often feel like an imposter when it comes to sharing my work – mainly because I don’t have an MA in Creative Writing or an undergraduate degree in English Literature. But being accepted onto The London Writers Award is a significant step towards discovering there might be a place for someone like me in the publishing world…’

Elmos grew up in North London. He has a BA in History and German from Oxford University and an MPhil in English from Cambridge University, and is currently doing a PhD in English at University College London. He has worked with acclaimed German author Ulrike Draesner and, while at Cambridge, was awarded prizes for his short fiction by Anthony Anaxagorou and for his poetry by Rod Mengham.

Elmos says: ‘The award is a much-needed – and gratefully received – vote of confidence in my writing. It represents an opportunity to continue exploring and working in an environment that recognises certain hurdles to my creative practice. This award and its associated scheme will give me a space to develop that I might otherwise lack; I’m looking forward to all of its aspects, and the experimental novel project I will pursue throughout it.’

Ahmed was born in Liverpool before training in Oxford, where he graduated with honours specialising in neuroscience, and completed his clinical medical training in Imperial College London. He has a background in Radiology and has worked in several medical start-ups.  He’s currently an NHS Clinical entrepreneurial fellow, and a founder at Tonus, developing exoskeletons using soft robotics to help people keep moving. He is a short-film director, national basketball champion and a Royal Society of Arts Fellow. Ahmed has always been interested in storytelling whether in books, films or video games and loves creating new worlds and unique stories that investigate the human experience. 

Anne Elicaño-Shields, a Filipino author, writes YA speculative fiction and adult fiction. She is represented by Jo Williamson of Antony Harwood Ltd. Previously based in Manila, Bangkok, and Washington DC, her writing is inspired by the myths, folklore, and urban legends of these places. Anne’s stories have found their way to other platforms. Her retelling of The Aeneid as a feminist space opera was recorded for The Classical Association podcast. She also did a public reading at the 2022 London Literature Festival at the Southbank Centre. 2023 Future Worlds Prize for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers – Finalist; 2022 FAB (Faber) Prize – Highly Commended, 2022 Creative Future Writers’ Award, 2021 London Writers Awards- Literary Fiction, and the 2007 International Essay Competition for Young People.

Twitter: @aeshields2

Ashani Lewis is a writer currently living in London. She is a Consulate Editor for Joyland magazine and writes novels and short fiction. Her writing has won the Tower Poetry Prize, the Alpine Fellowship Writing Competition and the Bedford Short Story competition, and her short fiction has also been published in Joyland, Bait Magazine and Bad Form Review. She read English Literature at Robinson College, Cambridge, graduating in 2019. 

Carla has worked in politics and communications for most of her career. She has worked in international development, governance reform, migrants’ and women’s rights. She studied and taught at the University of Sheffield. She was born and raised in Manila, Philippines and is a first-generation immigrant. She has written personal essays, satire, short fiction and poetry, and aspires to write a memoir, novels and maybe a cookbook. She enjoys reading historical novels, memoirs, folklore and mythology, spy thrillers and speculative fiction. Other interests include cooking and photography. 

Cecile is Franco-Vietnamese and grew up in Paris and New York. She moved to London at eighteen to pursue a BA in Philosophy at University College London, followed by an MA at King’s College London. She currently works as an Editorial Assistant in book publishing. 

Deshani started writing five years ago when inspiration for a short story based on a young girl who travels to Sri Lanka first hit. Since then she has attended a number of courses on creative writing and feels she has learnt much about the craft. In the upcoming year, she hopes to piece this knowledge together in the writing of a novel which is loosely based on this initial short story. 

Eleanor Penny is a poet, writer & essayist. She’s a former Barbican Young Poet, and a has twice been shortlisted for Young People’s Poet Laureate for London. She has won multiple national poetry prizes, including Poetry London 2020 and the Verve Poetry Festival prize 2020. She has taught poetry with organisations including The Barbican Centre, The Midnight Run & The Poetry School. She’s the host & co-producer of live literature podcast Bedtime Stories for the End of the World, and a former artist in residence at the Centre for Recent Drawing. Her non-fiction work appears regularly in outlets including In These Times, Verso Books, the New Statesman and Novara Media. 

Elizabeth is an actress and writer based in London. Born in Bradford, she began acting with the National Youth Theatre as a teenager and has worked at the National Theatre, Almeida, Donmar Warehouse, West End, Gate Theatre and the Traverse, Edinburgh where she is also a script reader. She wrote her first play for the Royal Court Writers Group in 2019 which was subsequently long listed for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting. With support from an Arts Council grant to develop her creative practice, she has been using somatic and healing practices to explore cultural memory, loneliness and fragmented narratives, using the body as a way into generating text. She is currently running a long-dreamed of pilot leadership programme for British East and South East Asian women, supporting six BESEA theatre artists and producers to make a positive shift in their professional practice. 

Emma is a Northern writer living in London. She trained as a performer at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She has since worked as an actor, comedian and voiceover artist alongside juggling zero-hours jobs as a waitress, shop assistant and cinema usher. She is an alumna of The Write Like a Grrrl creative writing programme. Emma is a perpetual people-watcher who, as well as working on her first novel, writes her own stand-up, sketches and short stories. Emma writes as a way of understanding the world and her place in it. She aims to write about sexuality, class and generational angst in a gripping and darkly humorous way. 

Gabrielle (she/they) lives in London and works in publishing. She is the co-founder and editor of clavmag, a digital literary magazine publishing creative writing by queer, trans and non-binary people. Gabrielle writes queer and uncanny fiction, and is a sucker for a good, gay love story. In 2019 she was selected to participate in ‘The Future is Back’, a series of creative writing workshops for emerging LGBTQ+ writers. You can read their work in Cipher Press’ chapbook There Will Always Be Nights Like This and Issue three of Fourteen Poems, and find them on Twitter and Instagram. 

Joyia is a writer living in London. She graduated in Fine Art, specialising in performance art and photography, and now works in TV, film and theatre, including in casting, as an assistant director and as an actress. She has performed at many London venues including Arcola Theatre, The Barbican, The Coliseum, Battersea Arts Centre, Leicester Square Theatre and Soho Theatre. Her short play Dorm 103 was chosen for a stage reading for Theatre Deli’s ‘28 Plays Later’. She has travelled widely, during which she has directed and produced a show of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues in Alice Springs, Australia, and also worked on Jane Campion’s TV series Top of the Lake in New Zealand. She is currently working on a memoir Butter about her peculiar adventures in Bali. 

Laura Leung-How is an aspiring writer of Hong Kong Chinese and Mauritian descent. She was brought up speaking Cantonese with a British accent and retains much more of her A-Level French than she does Mauritian Creole. Despite wanting to read English at university, she eventually earned a BA in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, with a focus on Japanese and Korean literature, and writings in the Chinese diaspora. She is currently penning her first novel, a YA fantasy that was shortlisted for the Penguin Random House Write Now competition in 2018. She occasionally dabbles in short fiction and was most recently published in the Tomorrow anthology under the 2020 Creative Future Awards. When not writing, she can be found in the kitchen of her North London home, cooking and consuming vegan food in large batches, or else channelling her inner Haruki Murakami on daily runs. 

Lavendhri Arumugam is writer and maker from Johannesburg. Formerly the director of an artist incubation project and gallery in Johannesburg, Arumugam holds a first class BA Hons in Visual Studies from the Norwich School of Art and Design, and a first class MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University for which she received a full Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Scholarship. She is also the recipient of the Image Threads Collective mentorship to support the visual component of her working manuscript. She has been working on her memoir since 2016 and is invested in producing work that is as much about the process of creating as it is about the work itself. She recently made a permanent move to be with her husband in Tottenham where they live with their many, many plants. 

Megan (she/her) is a queer writer based in London, UK. She has a degree in Fine Art from City & Guilds of London Art School. She’s written articles, poems and short stories on a wide variety of topics including art, love, sex, sexuality, mental health, feminism and culture. She has published online and in print in several publications including BRICKS Magazine, Thought Catalog, Tickle.Life, Brenda Magazine, House of Revolution, Backlash Press and New River Press. Her first attempt at a novel aged 11 centred around an ancient baked bean world. Outside of writing and reading, Megan loves art, yoga and bouldering. 

Nilesha Chauvet is a British Indian debut novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, The Uprising of Rita Marsh, will be published by Faber as a crime thriller superlead title in July 2024. Nilesha writes zeitgeist psychological suspense, crime, and thriller. She is also the Managing Director of The GOOD Agency which advises commercial brands on Purpose, and helps charities raise millions of pounds for good causes.

A graduate of Faber Academy, Nilesha has also studied novels and short story writing at Curtis Brown Creative and City Lit. She read Philosophy & Theology at Oxford and was ordained an Interfaith Minister in 2004. The manuscript of her debut novel, previously titled The Disappearance of Sir, was awarded a London Writers Award with Spread the Word in 2021. It was also a finalist for the Spotlight First Novel Award, later that year.

Nilesha is currently editing her second novel, several shades darker than she had originally intended. She lives in London with her husband, two children, and a black cat named Archie. She is represented by Nelle Andrew at Rachel Mills Literary.

Website : www.nileshachauvet.com

Instagram and Twitter : @NileshaChauvet

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/nilesha.chauvet

LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilesha-chauvet-b7947021/

Paige grew up with a love for the fantasy genre and historical fiction, studying English Literature at Exeter University and even taking a module on Tolkien. But as a black girl, began to realise these stories did not love her back. The depiction of people of colour, if included at all, were as downtrodden victims often with a white saviour narrative. So, she started to write. Creating the stories she wanted to see. She wrote her first novel by hand at fifteen, locking herself in her room over the summer holidays and scribbling away. Over the last year she has written numerous scripts. Her short film ‘Half As Much’ was shortlisted by the British Film Institute, and most recently her short ‘Whiskey Wednesdays’ was produced and shown by Kickitdown Productions and her play ‘A Quick Game’ has been selected for production by the Playground Theatre.   

Rebecca Lewis is a London-based writer who has always loved a gripping story. She studied at Exeter University and City University. A former journalist for newspapers and women’s magazines, she left journalism four years ago and now works in medical research communications. She is particularly drawn to stories about morally ambiguous characters, with themes of family, identity, love and trust. She has written short stories and is currently working on her first novel. 

Remi Oshibanjo is the self-published author of a collection of poetry called These Are The Most Terrifying Thoughts. She is an active member of the London based creative collective, SXWKS. In 2016, Remi was one of Spread the Word’s Flight Associates and is one of the co-founders of AZ Magazine, the only British BME LGBT+ online publication. Her writing focuses largely on the Queer Black British experience, how love leads all of our lives. 

Rosemary Amadi was born and raised in London, the youngest child of Nigerian parents. She grew up reading fantasy novels with horses, knights and pale-skinned beauties. In adulthood she found solace and reinvigoration in West African poetry, literature, proverbs and mythology. Her writing explores the interconnectedness of all things, living and dead, as she reaches backwards to her ancestors with wonder and reverence, and outwards to her contemporaries with empathy and strength. Rosemary completed a BA in Modern Languages from the University of Bristol and was shortlisted for Penguin’s 2020 WriteNow editorial programme. She will be joining the London Writers Award Programme for Commercial Fiction, during which time she will work on her first book, an adult fantasy novel, Journey to the Gods. In her spare time she enjoys watching pretty bad horror films and pretty good thriller series, and is perfecting the art of chaotic playlist curation. 

Sabrina is a British-Zambian lawyer and writer. She is passionate about justice and the power of stories. In 2006 she co-founded AdvocAid, a civil society organisation in Sierra Leone that provides access to justice for women in detention. She formerly worked for Amnesty International and for a group of global leaders, The Elders, leading their access to justice work. Her work has included freeing 6 women on death row, documenting conditions on death row in Ghana, collecting evidence of human rights abuses by a dictator in Gambia, contributing to overturning a ban on pregnant girls from attending school in Sierra Leone and helping set up the first Fund to support Grassroots Justice groups. She is a regular writer and commentator for a variety of media platforms. She writes short stories, children’s books and is working on a non-fiction book as part of the London Writers Awards. 

Sarah Clement began creative writing aged fifty. She says sometimes we feel silenced by our lives and it can take a long time to find words. Her writing has been published in Liars’ League, Reflex Fiction, MIR Online, LossLit and The Selkie, and in the Chemistry, TLC Free Reads, and A Wild and Precious Life anthologies. In 2018 she won a Creative Future Literary Award and a story of hers was recently shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. During the LWA programme she worked on a memoir told in stories, about grief, trauma and bipolarity. With a background as a research psychologist and with a personal history of psychological troubles, Sarah is interested in everything to do with the mind and the complexities of our inner lives.

Serena is an aspiring children’s author, with a love for two ‘W’s’, walking and writing.  Her stories and poetry are inspired by every day, real-life events and observations made as a mum and primary school teacher. Born and raised in Bristol, Serena will always be a Bristolian at heart; she now resides in South London with her husband and two amazing children. Most of her working career has been spent advocating for children, firstly in the charity sector and in the last decade, working with primary school children with special educational needs. Serena loves rhyming poetry and happily pens bespoke pieces for family and friends, sometimes stepping out for a performance on special occasions. Raising two bookworms, Serena is acutely aware of the power of books and the importance of diverse representations in children’s stories. Her dream is to become a well-known, published, children’s author.  She is currently working on a laugh your socks off middle grade children’s novel. 

Sharanya Murali lives and writes in West London. She received her PhD in Drama from the University of Exeter and now teaches theatre at Brunel University London. Her fiction was shortlisted for the Mo Siewcharran Prize 2019. She is working on her first novel. 

Shereen is a poet and writer. After training in human-rights centred professional positions, she worked for a number of years as an immigration barrister in tribunals across England and Wales. During that time she defended individuals against adverse Home Office decisions. Her practice included several cases involving persons claiming refugee status as a result of their sexuality and their grounded fears of being persecuted in their home states. In her literary work, she is particularly interested in improving inter-faith relations, increasing social tolerance and hospitality, and refocussing plights towards which sympathy may wane. As a poet and writer, she has been published in Ambit Magazine, The Masters Review, Magma, Passengers Journal, Cathexis Northwest and High Shelf Press. She was longlisted for the Women Poets’ Prize 2020. She lives in Streatham, south London, with her kittens, Naala and Nomi. 

Sukh Brar writes to make sense of his life, his relationships, and his community. He populates his stories with well-meaning but wounded characters who make terrible decisions. He has always loved political novels and uses his own fiction to advance causes he cares about. His stories have shortlisted or longlisted for several prizes, including the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize, Aesthetica’s Creative Writing Award, and Hachette’s Mo Siewcharran First Novel Prize. In 2018, he was awarded an Arts Council England grant to develop his creative practice. In 2019, he was a member of Spread the Word’s The Future Is Back—the programme helped him find and hone his writing voice. Sukh is a chemical engineer. He lives in east London. 

Tom Newlands is a Scottish writer living in London. He is a winner of the London Writer’s Award, a Creative Future Writer’s Award and New Writing North’s A Writing Chance. He was a winner at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival Writing Awards 2022, and most recently his work has appeared in the New Statesman, New Writing Scotland and in the BBC Radio production Margins to Mainstream, with actor Michael Sheen. His debut novel Only Here, Only Now is forthcoming in May 2024 from Phoenix Books.

Twitter and Instagram: @tomnewlands_

Tommy’s work centres on issue of identity and how it feels to occupy liminal space. He is currently working on his debut novel. Tommy is represented by Crystal Mahey Morgan & Jason Morgan of OWN IT! Agency. Tommy is half Lebanese, half Welsh and totally queer.

Tracey grew up in Greater Manchester and moved to London for work and study in the 1990s. She has worked in the cultural sector for over twenty-five years, initially as an arts and events manager before completing teaching qualifications and moving into archives and museum learning. Inspired by working as a learning officer for The Women’s Library, she decided to pursue post-graduate study in history. She completed her MLitt in 2018, writing her dissertation on dressmaking apprentices in Victorian London. Her fiction is about working-class women and focusses on family, work environments and economic instability.  Tracey also writes poetry and non-fiction, specifically nature writing and social history. 

Victoria currently lives in London though she originally hails from Brooklyn, and don’t you ever forget it. A queer woman, fascinated by queer stories in all their multidimensional forms, her background is in playwriting, her plays having been performed internationally in both the United States and United Kingdom. She trained as an actor at both Northwestern University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. When Victoria is not writing, she likes to travel to all sorts of far-flung places with her trusty rucksack Odysseus. She believes storytelling is an act of resistance, of change. She believes that the stories we tell matter, that they are our best hope. And she remains ever hopeful. Oh. And her first words were “dead bird.” And if that doesn’t tell you who Victoria is, what will?