Contributors
Deenah Al-Aqsa
Deenah is an award-nominated journalist and poet. A proud socialist, she writes about human rights and advocates fiercely for equality and social justice. She’s a queer Muslim Bengali woman who aims to integrate different parts of her identity within her writing, with a particular love for the ghazal form.
Jack Bigglestone
Jack Bigglestone is a writer and reader from rural Shropshire. He has been published in New Writing Scotland, A Queer Anthology of Healing, Wet Grain, and elsewhere. He was recently featured on the Bedtime Stories at the End of the World podcast.
Helen Bowie
Helen Bowie (she/they) is a writer, performer and charity worker. Their debut pamphlet WORD/PLAY is out now with Beir Bua Press. Helen is founder and editor of Tattiezine, a potato themed art and lit zine, and is Extremely Online at twitter.com/helensulis
Mina C
Mina C is a poet and student from London.
Courtney Conrad
Courtney Conrad is a Jamaican poet who explores the intersectionality of religion, sexuality and migration. A member of The London Library Emerging Writers Programme, BYP and RPC. A Bridport Prize Young Writers Award recipient, shortlisted for The White Review Poet's Prize and longlistee for the Rebecca Swift Women Poets’ Prize.
Jack Cooper
A member of Coventry Stanza, Jack has been published by Young Poets Network, Popshot, and Ambit. He is currently researching embryonic cell migration at the University of Warwick, and can often be found on Twitter (@JackCooper666).
Mae Diansangu
Mae Diansangu is an Aberdonian poet. Mae writes to continue conversations started by people long gone and some who are still here. These conversations are felt in the body before being expressed on the page, making each poem a visceral response (to a question that will probably remain unanswered).
Kat Dixon
Kat Dixon (she/her) is a queer, London-based poet. Her poems have appeared in The Rialto, Perverse, Butcher’s Dog, Tears in the Fence, Queerlings, South Bank Poetry and Mslexia. She recently completed her Masters in Writing Poetry with Newcastle University and The Poetry School. She is working on her first collection. @dixon_kat (Instagram)
Lady Red Ego
Lady Red Ego is a lesbian writer concerned with intimacies. Her first pamphlet, The Red Ego, was published in 2019 with Wild Pressed Books and her second pamphlet, Natural Sugars, was published in 2020 by Broken Sleep Books. You can find her at www.ladyredego.com
Sam J Grudgings
Sam J Grudgings is a queer poet from Bristol shortlisted for the Outspoken Poetry Prize 2020. His work explores rehabilitation, addiction & loss via the lens of body horror & the 1920’s burlesque scene. Commonly found yelling poems at punk shows, his collection The Bible II is available from Verve Poetry Press.
Lilidh Jack
Christopher Kirubi/Dove
An Aberdonian graduate, Jack is a Glasgow-based writer and performer. She lived for several years as a recluse in Aberdeenshire. Is still slightly unhinged. Some of her writing is for sale on etsy, and some news-writing available online; under 'jack/lilidh,' or 'Lilidh Jack.' Updates at @jacklilidh.
Christopher Kirubi/Dove is a London-based artist and poet.
Oluwaseun Olayiwola
Oluwaseun Olayiwola is a Nigerian-American dancer, choreographer, poet, and critic based in London. He recently completed an MFA in Choreography from the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music in Dance. His poems have been published by the Tate, bath magg, Odd Magazine, Queerlings, VS the Podcast and Poached Hare.
Andrés Ordorica
Andrés N. Ordorica is a queer Latinx writer based in Edinburgh. He is a recipient of the Edwin Morgan Trust’s Second Life grant. In 2021, he was shortlisted for both the Morley Prize for Unpublished Writers of Colour and Mo Siewcharran Prize. He is the author of At Least This I Know (404 Ink).
Antonela Pallini-Zemin
Antonela Pallini-Zemin graduated as an English Language and English Literature Teacher in Buenos Aires and has recently completed an MA in Creative Writing Poetry at the University of East Anglia. She writes both in English and Spanish. Her poems have been published in different newspapers, literary magazines and journals across the UK, the US, Mexico, Argentina and Spain. Twitter: @PalliniZemin
Kira Scott
Kira Scott is a 23-year-old bookseller from East Lothian. In 2020 she graduated from the University of Aberdeen in English Literature and Creative Writing. Her work was published in The Common Breath’s The Middle of a Sentence and she is shortlisted for the Writers & Artists Working-Class Writers’ Prize 2021.
JP Seabright
JP Seabright is a queer writer who has had poetry, prose and experimental work published in various places. Their debut prose chapbook will be published by Lupercalia Press in early 2022, and a collaborative poetry pamphlet is coming soon with Nine Pens Press. Info at https://jpseabright.com and Twitter @errormessage.
Mariam Varsimashvili
Mariam is a bilingual poet recently graduated from Goldsmiths University where she studied literature and creative writing. She lives in Oxford and is inspired by all things strange. Someday, she wants to be the David Lynch of the poetry world. You can find more of her poems on her website https://mvars.wordpress.com
Kat Payne Ware
Kat Payne Ware (she/her) is a queer poet and essayist, and the founding editor of SPOONFEED, an online literary food magazine. Her debut pamphlet of poetry, THE LIVE ALBUM, was published with Broken Sleep Books in July 2021. You can find her on Twitter @katpayneware and @SPOONFEEDmag.
Jinhao Xie
Jinhao Xie, born in Chengdu, is interested in nature, the mundane, the interpersonal and selfhood. Their work is in POETRY, Gutter Magazine, Poetry Review, Harana, Bath Magg, and anthologies, including Slam! You're Gonna Wanna Hear This edited by Nikita Gill and Instagram Poems for Every Day by National Poetry Library.
Shortlist
Alongside the 20 poets selected for publication from our submission call, we wanted to give special acknowledgement to 10 further pieces on our public shortlist. In no particular order, these are:
Congratulations to all!