About Us

Simon Richardson is an arts journalist and radio producer with a specialism in books. He makes radio and podcasts at the BBC and is passionate about promoting the work of queer authors, many of whom he’s commissioned to write for Radios 3 and 4. He was a Trustee of New Writing South for eight years, helping to found the Coast is Queer Festival of LGBTQ+ literature. In 2019 he was named a Bookseller ‘Rising Star’.

Aimée Felone is managing director of KNIGHTS OF, a multi award-winning inclusive publisher focused on bringing underrepresented voices to the forefront of commercial children’s publishing. With a team led by women of colour, and an unwavering focus on their intended readership for each book, Knights Of works to engage with gatekeepers across the industry, including booksellers, teachers and librarians, and supports non-traditional community spaces with events, outreach, marketing and partnerships.

Della specialises in supporting the development and implementation of meaningful change to ensure the focus on equality, diversity and inclusion is deeply embedded within organisations and businesses. She has managed and delivered large-scale initiatives to address structural inequalities within the Arts, Creative Industries and Higher Education sectors. She began her career in the sector as a Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries Fellow and was, until recently, Creative Lead at Literature Wales. She is now the Diversity and Inclusion Lead at Chwarae Teg, Wales’ leading gender equality charity, and a Consultant and Speaker at people make it work. 

Gita Ralleigh is a poet, writer and NHS doctor born to Indian immigrant parents in London. She has been published by Wasafiri, Bellevue Literary Review, Magma Poetry,Under The Radar and The Rialto among others. She teaches creative writing to science undergraduates at Imperial College and has an MA in Creative Writing and an MSc in Medical Humanities. Her debut poetry collection A Terrible Thing was published by Bad Betty Press in 2020 and her pamphlet Siren is forthcoming in 2022 from Broken Sleep Books. She is a member of the Kinara poetry collective.  

Sam is Co-Founder & Project Manager at intergenerational community engagement life writing project CityLife Stories; Operations Manager at Poetry Translation Centre; Writing Mentor at Arkbound; and across the last decade has worked at multiple London-based literature charities including English PEN, Free Word, First Story, The Poetry Society, and Prison Reading Groups. Her areas of work and interest are writer development, underrepresented and radical community histories, public libraries, city farms, and spatial justice. She has a BA in Creative Writing and MSc in Library Science.

www.samdodd.co.uk

Joe Sedgwick is the Head of Writing Services at The Literary Consultancy. Joe has worked at TLC since 2015, and after starting as a paid intern, now manages TLC’s core editorial and operational services, looking after its team of readers and mentors and overseeing all in-house processes. He has an MA in Publishing from Kingston University and has also undertaken internships at Palgrave MacMillan and Bloomsbury. He has been a reader for Spread the Word’s London Short Story Prize & Life Writing Prize, and has spoken at Kingston University, The Asian Writer Festival, & New Writing North’s Newcastle Writing Conference. 

Hayley Steed is a Senior Literary Agent at Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency, where she works with authors of fiction and non-fiction including Clare Pooley, Yomi Adegoke, Henry Fry and Leah Hazard. She joined the MM Agency in 2016 and was named a Rising Star in The Bookseller in 2019. In 2022, she became a Trailblazer Award Winner for her innovation, creativity and passion in publishing. 

Sherifa Ibitola is a Visually Impaired freelance consultant, disability advocate and activist dedicated to access, inclusion and diversity, kicking down barriers and creating change in the arts and digital media industry.  

April Yee’s poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have won or been listed for The Best American Essays, Ivan Juritz Prize, Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize, Manchester Poetry Prize, and Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award. A Harvard alumna and former journalist, she reported in more than a dozen countries before moving to London, where she has served as a Refugee Journalism Project mentor and The Georgia Review’s editor-in-residence. Her work has been supported by the National Book Critics Circle, Ledbury Poetry Critics, the Southbank Centre, and the University of East Anglia, where she is a Malcolm Bradbury Memorial Scholar. She tweets at @aprilyee.