CRIPtic x Spread the Word

Elspeth Wilson is a writer and poet who is interested in exploring the limitations and possibilities of the body through writing, as well as writing about joy and happiness from a marginalised perspective, which has led her to co-found the Writing Happiness project with Rachel Lewis. Her poems have been commended in Young Poets’ Network challenges and her prose has been shortlisted for Canongate’s Nan Shepherd prize and Penguin’s Write Now Editorial programme. Elspeth is currently working on her debut collection and also regularly facilitates accessible creative workshops. When she isn’t writing or reading, she can usually be found near the sea or spending time with her guinea pigs.

www.elspethwilson.co.uk / Twitter / Instagram

Image credit: Christy Ku

Joe Rizzo Naudi’s fiction, poetry and narrative non-fiction has been published on the Ink, Sweat and Tears webzine and in print by the Laurence Sterne Trust, Times of Malta and Sidekick Books. In 2022 he was awarded a London Writers Award by Spread The Word and won an Arts Council England grant to develop literature and performance projects exploring society, vision and mobility cane use. His writing, film and theatre work has been exhibited at the Wellcome Collection, the BFI Southbank, Brixton House, Vault Festival, Rich Mix, the ICA and the BBC. He has a degree in English Literature from King’s College London and an MA in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths College. He was previously Editorial Assistant at Granta Books and currently works as a teacher, workshop facilitator and gallery mediator.

Twitter / Instagram

Athena Stevens is an Olivier-nominated writer, performer, director and social activist. She specialises in telling true stories within a dramatic context and finding meaning in what may otherwise be dismissed as mundane detail. She is the writer in residence at the Finborough Theatre and Artistic Director of Aegis Productions.

In 2018 Athena’s play SCHISM was nominated for an Off West End Award Best Female Performance and for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. In 2020 the world premiere of her third play SCROUNGER opened the Finborough Theatre’s 40th Anniversary season. The production garnered Off West End Awards for Best New Play and Best Supporting Performance.

www.antheastevens.com / Twitter

Hayleigh is a Scottish based writer. Having previously obtained a Masters in Creative Media Practises, she attended the University of Glasgow and gained a Doctorate of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Published her gothic fantasy debut novel, Girl of the Ashes, in 2020. Co-edited anthology Stories from Home, during the pandemic for The Ambulance Staff Charity. Regular short story writer for Disability Horizons often using humour and satire to discuss disability issues. Currently represented by Long Road Talent for scriptwriting and is working on several scriptwriting projects.

Twitter / Instagram

Jamie Hale is a writer, performer and director who works across poetry, essay, script, and stage exploring the interactions between the body, impairment, nature and environment. They curate CRIPtic, a d/Deaf and disabled creative programme, and have had work published in Rialto, Magma, the Guardian, and their own pamphlet, Shield (Verve Press, 2021). They won Evening Standard Future Theatre Fund Director/Theatremaker of the Year award for their solo show NOT DYING, and their work with CRIPtic, which will feature as a showcase of d/Deaf and disabled artists at the Barbican in Autumn 2021.

Jamie is leading the June Salon workshop.

Antonia Jade King is one of the hosts of Boomerang Club, and a previous Hammer & Tongue finalist. She has featured at Poetry and Shaah and Heaux Noire and was part of Apples and Snakes Writing Room programme in 2018. She has performed at numerous events including Love Supreme festival and Rallying Cry at Battersea Arts Centre. She was also a Barbican Young Poet and her debut pamphlet ‘She Too Is a Sailor’ is out with Bad Betty Press.

Jenny is a Welsh based artist and writer who often engages with themes around identity, expression, politics, and equality. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to creating; Jenny often combines poetry and spoken word with movement, video, and installation.

Mainly writing poetry and short fiction, Jenny’s written work often engages with the everyday: using it as backdrop to comment on larger questions, thoughts, and contemporary political and societal issues.

Jenny has previously taught creative writing and holds a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.

Hayleigh Barclay is a Scottish based writer and disability rights campaigner. She obtained a Doctorate of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow in 2019. Her thesis researched 19^th century Gothic vampire literature and involved writing her debut novel, Girl of the Ashes which was published in 2020. She writes short stories for the online magazine Disability Horizons. The stories blend dark humour and disabled characters to reinforce that disability needn’t be a taboo subject.

During the pandemic she co-edited an anthology of stories/poems with proceeds going to The Ambulance Staff Charity. Avid scriptwriter. Teller of bad jokes!

Shannon Yee (Sickels) is an award-winning writer and producer. Her perspectives as an immigrant, ethnic minority, queer artist-parent with a disability living in NI are deeply embedded in her work. Shannon has received a number of awards and grants, including the ACNI Major Individual Artist Award (2017). Her Reassembled, Slightly Askew sonically immerses audiences in her autobiographical experience of nearly dying and subsequent acquired brain injury (www.reassembled.co.uk) , touring locally, nationally and internationally in arts festivals and medical training settings since 2015. Shannon’s published short stories are ‘The Brightening Up Side’( Belfast Stories; Doire Press, 2019), and ‘Thumbnails’ (Queer Love: An Irish Anthology; Southward, 2020). www.s-yee.co.uk

Tom is a writer, theatre maker and producer who focuses on changing who gets to imagine the future by revealing how the things we take for granted as fundamental in our lives, are actually just made up nonsense.

His work has been seen at Theatre Royal Stratford East, Shoreditch Town Hall, Camden People’s Theatre, Pleasance, Theatre503 and he is currently developing a digital piece as part of CRIPtic 2021 at The Barbican.

“Can You See Into a Black Hole?” is a solo show about his own experience of growing up with epilepsy. It was made in collaboration with his parents and follows the real story of his family. He wanted to be an astronaut but when he had his first seizure aged 8 and a black hole opened up inside his head – that had to change. Instead he goes on an epic adventure to understand the black hole in his brain. “Can You See Into a Black Hole?” is an imaginative attempt to remove epilepsy from the medical model and demonstrate that the thing that makes the condition difficult is not the seizures – but the way in which the world is built.

Penny Pepper is an acclaimed wheelchair-using author, poet, performer & disabled activist. A genre-defying and versatile writer, her work focuses on the examination of difference, inequality and identity. She tells stories we haven’t heard, making others see life differently, always with humour and wisdom. Her champions include Jake Arnott, Margaret Drabble and Danuta Keene. Most recently she has been selected as a finalist in the prestigious international Hemingway Shorts 2021 Competition and her winning story will be published in their competition anthology.

Penny published her groundbreaking memoir, First in The World Somewhere with Unbound and a poetry collection, Come Home Alive, with Burning Eye Books. She is now signed to The Good Literary Agency where she is represented by Abi Fellows. She has also been widely published including Mslexia, The Guardian, Byline Times amongst others.

Image of Penny by Jonny Bosworth

Ayesha is a writer and multimedia artist who aims to use her artwork for political means, opening up safe spaces for conversation about difficult topics. Often her work draws on personal experience of disability. Her poetry has been shown in the ‘Song of Myself’ Poetry Jukebox at Belfast International Arts Festival, at ‘Mr W et al’, a celebratory event exploring art and disability in Hackney Wick, and in ‘Deaf Experience’, an online short film screening of films by deaf and hard-of-hearing creators, organised by The Film Bunch. She is currently writing her MA dissertation whilst working for Creative Estuary.

Sonny Nwachukwu is a writer, director, choreographer and performer based in London. His work is multi-disciplinary spanning across writing, poetry, dance, theatre and anything that lies beyond. His work primarily focuses on the African and Caribbean Diaspora.

Sonny is a storyteller that incorporates dance and literature making his work relevant, unique, vibrant and thought-provoking. His background in Psychology informs much of his work and he is keen to tackle issues seen as taboo or ‘different’.

Inigo Purcell is a graduate student and writer from London. He is currently studying a PhD about Arthurian legend at the University of Bristol and Macquarie University. He previously studied at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge and Oxford Brookes University. In 2017 he was selected for the Moth magazine’s residency for writers under 30. His novel about the long term fallout of a political sex scandal, An Entirely Different Person, was recently selected for the Hachette Future Bookshelf scheme. He enjoys knitting, jigsaws, and getting very intensely interested in popular fiction from the mid twentieth century.

Betty Doyle is a poet and student from Liverpool. Her poetry has been published in Cake, Brag, Smoke, Lunate, Re-Side, and Sink amongst others, and has been accepted for Agenda’s Young Poets series. She was longlisted for the Mslexia Women’s Poetry Prize 2018, judged by Carol Ann Duffy. From 2014-2016, she was poetry editor for Flash Journal Lancaster.

She is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, where she is researching infertility poetry. She has a physical disability called Arthrogryposis.

Her debut poetry pamphlet, Girl Parts, will be published by Verve Poetry Press in March 2022. Twitter: betty_poet

Shahid Iqbal Khan is an Offie-nominated playwright. He has been part of BBC Writersroom, MacFest and Write To Play. His recent stage plays are Stardust (Belgrade Theatre) and 10 Nights (Bush Theatre). His radio work includes Bhavika, Night of the Living Flatpacks (both on community channels) and Sheltering (BBC Radio 4).

Kathryn O’Driscoll is the 2021 U.K. Slam Champion and World Slam Finalist. A spoken word poet and activist from Bath, England, she talks openly about mental health, neurodivergency, disability, LGBTQIA+ issues and joys, and survival in her poetry.

She has performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Bath Festival, the Royal Albert Hall, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Cheltenham Literary Festival, and on BBC Radio Bristol. She was also one of the featured poets on the (BAFTA winning) Sky Arts spoken word TV show Life and Rhymes. Her debut collection ‘Cliff Notes’ was released by Verve Poetry Press in February.

Hannah Hodgson is a poet with a life limiting illness. Her debut collection is due from Seren in February 2022, and her New Poets Prize winning pamphlet is to be published by The Poetry Business in June 2022. Find more of her through her website, and Twitter.

Hannah is the first prize winner in the Poetry and Political Language Challenge on Young Poets Network, in partnership with the Orwell Youth Prize. She is the second prize winner in the second Bloodaxe Archive challenge, about White Space, and is commended in the fourth Bloodaxe Archive challenge, Take Note. She is also the second prize winner in the 19-25 age category in the Turn Up the Volume challenge, and in the Keats challenge on Young Poets Network, part of The Poetry Society’s celebrations of Keats’s bicentenary in 2021.

Hannah is additionally a winner in the 2016 Young Poets Network August Challenge #2, as well as a commended poet in 2016 August Challenges #1 and #4 and in August Challenge #1: Conversation Poems in 2021. She is also commended in Young Poets Network’s 10th anniversary challenge. She is a winner in the 2016 Behind the Curtain poetry challenge, in partnership with the V&A Museum, and the winner of the 2016 Even It Up Poetry Challenge in the 15-18 age category.

Sahera Khan (she/her) is a Muslim, Deaf and BSL user, Writer/Creator, Artist/Actress, Filmmaker & YouTuber.

Sahera started writing to share her many creative stories with others. In 2010 she enrolled in a number of creative writing courses, then created her first blog for short pieces, before combining these into a book ‘My Creative Writing’ which she self published via Kindle. She has written nine ebooks. These covered a range of topics like children’s stories, fiction and nonfiction.

She has written several short screenplays for screen and theatre scripts, including a short film called ‘He Stood Me Up’ which was commissioned by BSL Zone in 2014 and a short play called ‘Hope for Ishq’, performed by Deafinitely Theatre in 2016.

Her poem is Why Together? published Together! 2020 Poetry Anthology 2020.

She wrote a short play No Words (2021) part of a research and development project which was funded by Deafinitely Theatre. The project is about a Deaf woman ‘Nice’, she was arrested and charged for ABH (Actual Bodily Harm). She was imprisoned for six months. She reveals the truth behind her journey in the justice system.

Her aim is to continuing writing ‘No Words’ to develop it into a full-length play and publish playtext.

At present she is writing and illustrating two new books: ‘Basic Islamic Signs with Illustrations’ and a series of short stories about deaf characters. This will be the first time she has published a book specifically with deaf characters.

Her first piece of journal published the book ‘Maternal Journal: A creative guide to journaling through pregnancy, birth and beyond’ by Laura Godfrey-Isaacs and Samantha McGowan, printed by Pinter & Martin (2021).

Also her poem ‘My Glow’ published What Meets the Eye? The Deaf Perspective book by Arachne Press (2021).

Emily is a deaf actor and director from Derby. Her Theatre directing/consulting credits include: The Offerings (Timber Festival, in association with Derby CAN); Eugene (Daniel Nicholas in association with AAC and SlungLow); Treasure Island (Derby Theatre); Telethon (TOOT Collective); Jack (Nottingham Playhouse); First Three Drops (Taking Flight Theatre Company); Jungle Book (Derby Theatre); Left Of Me (PAD Productions) and The WISE Project (Sarah Gatford Ltd./Police Crime Commissioner). Other theatre acting credits include: Much Ado About Nothing (1623 Theatre / Century Theatre); Left of Me, Soul Bear (PAD Productions); People of the Eye (The Deaf & Hearing Ensemble); Leveret (Bristol Old Vic); The Iron Man (Graeae Theatre Company); Gwion and the Witch (Taking Flight Theatre Company) and Loving April (Oxfordshire Theatre Company). Television credits include: Doctors, Casualty, Inside Number 9, Holby City, SeeHear (BBC) and Give Out Girls (Big Talk Productions). Short Film credits include: I Hear You (YUFC); Coda (Neath Films); Five Needles (BSLBT); Luke Starr (DeafFest) and My Song (CB Films).

Khairani Barokka is a Minang-Javanese writer and artist from Jakarta, now based in London. Her work has been presented widely, across 18 countries, and centres disability justice as anticolonial praxis. Among Okka’s honours, she was a UNFPA Indonesian Young Leader Driving Social Change for arts practice and research, an NYU Tisch Departmental Fellow, Modern Poetry in Translation’s Inaugural Poet-in-Residence, and Associate Artist at the UK’s National Centre for Writing. Her books include Rope (Nine Arches, 2017), Indigenous Species (Tilted Axis, 2016), co-edited volume Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches, 2017), shortlisted for a Saboteur Award, and her most recent book, Ultimatum Orangutan (Nine Arches, 2021), which was shortlisted for the Barbellion Prize.

Emily Brenchi is a 30-year-old disabled writer and actor from South East London. She gained a BA in English and Drama in 2012 and is interested in exploring ideas around disability and the body on the page. Her photographs appear in her husband Daniel Sluman’s T.S. Eliot shortlisted collection single window and her poems feature in places such as the Anthology of Illness (The Emma Press, 2020) and Wordgathering. She recently finished co-editing issue 16 of Butcher’s Dog poetry magazine. She tweets @EmilyBrenchi