Tasneem Abdur-Rashid is a British Bengali writer born and raised in London. A mother of two, Tasneem has worked across media, PR and communications both in the UK and in the UAE. Today, Tasneem spends her days working in PR for a national charity and her nights studying for her Masters – and in between, she’s busy trying (and often failing) to be super mum, super wife and super chef. She also co-hosts an award-winning podcast called Not Another Mum Pod. Having previously published a bestselling novel under a pseudonym, Finding Mr Perfectly Fine is Tasneem’s first book written under her own name.

Christian Adofo is an established writer, cultural curator and author of Ghanaian-British heritage from North-East London. His passion for writing focuses on the intersect of heritage and identity in Music and Culture across the cultural landscape. His debut book A Quick Ting on Afrobeats looks at the development of West African music and subculture from the past to the present day.

Cairo is the founder of Black Girls Brunch. Her debut play Who’s Looking Back at You? premiered at The Barbican Theatre and won the Toast of Fringe Award. She is a former Apples and Snakes Writing Room cohort and alumnus of The Soho Theatre’s Writers’ Lab for new playwrights. Her work has featured at The Westbank Gallery. Her first poetry collection, Sunshine and Raindrops, saw her listed by The Voice Newspaper as one of ten unsung ‘phenomenal Black British authors’. In the past Cairo has performed her poetry at The Bush Theatre, Port Eliot Literary Festival, and recently opened for the acclaimed poet Dr John Cooper Clarke at Latitude Festival in 2021.

Sofia Akel is an education activist and researcher, campaigning and leading work to tackle institutional racism in education. Currently, she is leading London Metropolitan University’s race equity work for the Centre of Equity and Inclusion, as well as working in a number of public facing roles such as: journalism, historical and race-related research and consultancy. She also founded the Free Book Campaign – a community interest company which aims to provide books by authors of colour to those who cannot access them due to financial or other systemic barriers.

Paula is a journalist, speaker and founding director of Black Girl Festival and co-founder of the ‘I’m Tired’ Project’ a photography campaign and international workshop programme. Paula’s work – mainly focuses on race, queerness, and social politics and she regularly writes for a variety of publications including Teen Vogue, The Independent, Stylist and Al Jazeera.

A former teacher, Karen Arthur is a fashion creative, private sewing tutor, stylist, content creator and founder. She sheds light on coping with the realities of the transition for young women and reminds mature women to own their value and to buck convention and the world’s attempts at erasure. Karen is committed to helping diversify the menopause scene with her podcast, Menopause Whilst Black. She is also the founder of Wear Your Happy, a group and styling service that shows people how to use their wardrobe to help improve their mental wellbeing. Having taken up modelling in her late fifties, you might have seen her smiling eyes gracing the most recent Specsavers TV campaign.

Nafisa is the CEO of Amaliah.com and Halal Gems. In Feb 2019, her essay on the representation of Muslim women in media was published in “It’s Not About The Burqa”, an Amazon bestseller. Nafisa’s work gained recognition in Forbes 30 under 30, Ad Age Women to Watch 2019, Evening Standard Progress 1000 Most Influential in Media, FT & Inclusive Boards #IB100 Bame Leaders and Kindness in Leadership supported by Unilever.

Khairani Barokka is a writer and artist from Jakarta, whose work has been presented in 16 countries. She is currently Researcher in Residence and Research Fellow at UAL’s Decolonising Arts Institute, and Associate Artist at the National Centre for Writing (UK). Among her honours, she has been a UNFPA Indonesian Young Leader Driving Social Change, and an NYU Tisch Departmental Fellow, Modern Poetry in Translation’s Inaugural Poet in Residence. Her books are Rope (Nine Arches) and Indigenous Species (Tilted Axis), and she is co-editor of Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches).

Kim is an ex-paramedic and lecturer in paramedic science currently taking a baby break. While raising her two wild things she decided to write a book about the other time in her life she was permanently tired, covered in bodily fluids and responsible for keeping the human in front of her alive.

Caroline is a writer based in Staffordshire. Her journalism has appeared in publications including the Guardian, National Geographic Traveller, Stylist, and Psychologies, and throughout 2022 she is writing a column for the Wellcome Collection about writing and disability. Her work often draws on her experience of being disabled, hoping to highlight what it’s like to be visually impaired and have a mental health condition. She’s studying for a PhD in creative writing, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and is also currently working on a young adult novel.

Mireille is an award-winning editor, writer, sensitivity reader and PR. She heads up Square Peg, an imprint of Penguin Random House UK, is the author of Timelines from Black History and has contributed to Timelines of Everyone, The Black History Book, Migrations (all DK) and This Is How We Come Back Stronger (And Other Stories). Her work has been published in British Vogue, Digital Spy, Good Housekeeping, Nation of Billions, GUAP, Nataal and more. Mireille has worked with Punch Records, BYP Network, Content is Queen and Bad Form on press campaigns.

Preeti is a researcher and historian, whose work tells stories hidden from the mainstream narrative. She works in the international development and humanitarian sector, and has a BA in History and Politics from the University of Oxford, and an MA in International Development and Public Policy. Preeti has written for Shout Out UK and The Rights Collective and was longlisted for Penguin WriteNow 2020.

Deirdre is a multi-media journalist for the BBC. She joined in 2012 and has had stints in the BBC’s Brussels, Westminster and Washington bureaux. Her work has been recognised by the British Journalism Awards and shortlisted for the Amnesty and One World Media Awards. Deirdre has a keen interest in stories about social affairs and inequality. Originally from Ireland, she now lives and works in London.

Hanna is a London-based critic, journalist and broadcaster writing on arts, culture and issues of diversity and representation within the entertainment industry. She is the co-chair of Time’s Up UK Critic Circle and a member of the London’s Critic Circle Film Section. Her work has been published by The Guardian, Empire, British GQ, Elle magazine, paper and BBC Culture among others. She is of mixed British and Tunisia heritage. Photo credit: Amaal Said.

Joy’s diverse career covers journalism, policy development, academia, executive coaching, digital enterprise, curation, production, film, PR and creative entrepreneurship, both here and abroad. She is the co-founder and executive director of Words of Colour Productions, co-founder and lead of Digital Women UK and also a co-founder and co-director of the award-winning Synergi Collaborative Centre.

Nicola Garrard spent fifteen years teaching in challenging schools in London where she worked with both the victims and perpetrators of knife crime. She is a lesbian and a parent of three children with English and Indian-Trinidadian heritage. She writes poetry, YA and adult fiction. Her poetry was awarded a prize by Carol Ann Duffy in the 2018 PBS Poetry Competition. Her debut novel, Twenty-Nine Locks, was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2019. It will be published by Hope Road in June 2021.

Nadia is a London born Pakistani writer and yoga teacher. A hard-news journalist, she has appeared in Metro, MailOnline, The Independent, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Huffington Post and Dazed and Confused. Nadia left news desks to work as a communications manager at petition’s website Change.org and crowdfunding platform GoFundMe. She is currently working on a book of non-fiction.

Alexis Gregory is a playwright, performer, director and producer. His work explores queer themes and his plays include ‘Riot Act’ (Duchess Theatre – West End, Arcola Theatre, Kings Head Theatre and UK tours), ‘Sex/Crime’ (Soho Theatre, The Glory), ‘Safe’ (Soho Theatre, Norwich Theatre Royal, London Theatre Workshop and directed by Alexis; Norwich Theatre Royal and in a digital online version for Hackney Empire) and ‘Slap’ (Theatre Royal Stratford East and Channel 4’s first ever onsite theatre performance). His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing.

Blaine Harrison is an activist, Ivor Novello-nominated songwriter, and co-founding member of the band Mystery Jets. Since the band’s formation he has released six UK top 40 albums, alongside collaborations with Laura Marling, Steven Wilson and The Waterboys. Born with Spina Bifida, Blaine is an accessibility patron for the Featured Artists’ Coalition and the charity Attitude is Everything, working with venues to make live music more accessible. He has spoken on BBC Breakfast and his writing has appeared in The Guardian and NME. In 2020, Blaine co-produced and hosted the podcast Things Worth Fighting For, exploring stories of activism.

Radhika is a London-based journalist who has written for national broadsheets including the Telegraph and the Guardian, as well as for specialist and trade publications. She grew up mostly in England but also partly in India, where her mother was from, and has a BA in English from the University of Oxford and an MA from the University of Warwick. She’s also run the communications for different charities including Mencap and Centrepoint, before deciding she was tired of telling journalists the story and wanted to start telling it herself. Radhika is fascinated by the lives of women who, like her, are mixed-race but white enough to ‘pass’. © Nic Holman.

Lizzie Huxley-Jones is a writer and editor based in London. They can be found editing at independent micropublisher 3 of Cups Press, and advising writers as a freelance sensitivity reader and consultant. In their past career lives, they have been a research diver, a children’s bookseller and digital communications specialist. They tweet too much at @littlehux, taking breaks to walk their dog Nerys.
© Jamie Drew

Kenny is the co-founder and Managing Director of ClearView Research Ltd, a leading-edge research company who specialise in research focusing on millennials and social impact evaluation. Described by Huffington Post as a ‘young rising star making waves in UK politics’, Kenny has led on innovative partnerships with global brands such as Uber, Tinder and Deliveroo, on campaigns to get young people registered to vote. Kenny is a trustee of several charities such as BBC Children in Need, Strength Within Me Foundation, City Gateway and Spark Inside. Kenny is also on the advisory board of the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust.

Ebinehita is the founder of Milk Honey Bees, a creative and expressive safe space for Black Girls to flourish and put H.E.R (Healing, Empowerment and Resilience) first. Ebinehita Iyere is also a therapeutic youth practitioner at Divert Youth working with young people who encounter the youth justice system and those who are impacted by violence in the community. She is currently undergoing her Professional Doctorate in Children and Young People’s Services researching the experience of Black Girls in Education and recently spoke at TedxLondonWomen 2021 asking the world ‘When will they see Black Girls’.

Sophie’s debut novel Wild Fires (spring 2021) is the 2019 winner of The Borough Press & The Good Literary Agency’s open submission competition. Sophie was born and raised in Trinidad and grew up in Toronto, Canada. She is a 2020 Visiting Fellow and Writer-in-Residence at Oxford University, and Sangam House. She has studied with Olive Senior at the Humber School for Writers in Toronto.

Zara Janjua is a journalist, presenter and screenwriter. She won a spot in the BBC Comedy Writersroom 2020, The BBC Children’s Indie Mentorship Writersroom 2021 and ITV Comedy 50:50’s Female Pilot Club 2021. Zara was also shortlisted for the Funny Women Comedy Writing Award 2020. She was a finalist for The Women of The Future Award and is currently working on several screenplay commissions.

Eleni Kyriacou was born and raised in London to Greek Cypriot parents. She’s an award-winning editor and journalist and she has appeared in publications such as the Guardian, the Observer, Marie Claire and Red and Stella. She’s written on a wide range of topics including adoption, relationships, travel, self-development, the arts and women’s health. Her first novel She Came to Stay is published by Hodder in 2020.

Sharada is interested in how different aspects of individual and collective identity form and collide. While her feminist fiction for young adults explores difficult themes including prejudice and repression, it is ultimately hopeful and uplifting. Sharada grew up in Australia and Canada, and now lives with her partner and son in London. She works on food and health advocacy for an international nutrition organisation. Her quirky debut poetry collection about fruits and vegetables, illustrated by JiaJia Hamner, was published in 2019. She feels strongly that young people need a wider variety of stories – stories that resonate with them, told by a wider variety of storytellers.

Thomas writes children’s novels inspired by his extraordinary life with a brain injury and epilepsy. Having lost all his memories in an accident, he re-discovered reading and writing and was inspired to write an adventure story after regaining a childhood memory. He lives in Essex, making new happy memories with his wife and two young children.

Mikaela Loach is a climate justice activist, co-host of The Yikes Podcast, writer and 5th year medical student based in Edinburgh. Her work focuses on making the climate movement more inclusive, the intersections of the climate crisis with oppressive systems and dismantling white supremacy. Mikaela has been featured in major press outlets such as Forbes, Global Citizen, Vogue, Cosmopolitan and BBC Woman’s Hour – where she was named as one of the most influential women in the UK climate movement.

Wenyan Lu is the winner of the 2020 SI Leeds Literary Prize for her novel The Funeral Cryer. Her historical novel The Martyr’s Hymn was also longlisted for The SI Leeds Literary Prize in 2018 and Bridport First Novel Prize in 2019. A native of Shanghai, Wenyan moved to the UK in 2006. She lives in Cambridge, where she teaches Mandarin Chinese and English as a second language. She holds a Master of Studies in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is also a literary translator. Her most notable translation project is Robert Macfarlane’s award-winning Mountains of the Mind. When she is not writing or teaching, Wenyan enjoys cooking and listening to Leonard Cohen.

lisa luxx is a queer poet, theatremaker, essayist and activist of British and Syrian heritage. Published in i-D, Dazed, The Telegraph, The International Times, and in anthologies by Hatchette, Saqi, Comma Press. Broadcast on Channel 4, BBC Radio 4, VICE TV, TEDx, and ITV. luxx was winner of the Out-Spoken Prize for Performance Poetry. Founder of The Sisterhood Salon in Beirut, her work and life is concerned with sisterhood as an act of resistance. Her debut collection Fetch Your Mother’s Heart is out now.

Prishita (they/them) is a writer, editor, and LGBTQ+ community organiser. They’re currently Politics Editor at BRICKS and a Trustee with Voices4 London. They also sit on the Advisory Board for Split Banana, a social enterprise redesigning relationship and sex-ed by bringing in the perspectives of groups traditionally excluded from the curriculum. Prishita has been published in METAL, gal-dem, and Dazed, amongst others. They featured in ‘Soul of a Movement’, a film by British creative directors Carson McColl and Gareth Pugh that documents some of the British LGBTQ+ activists, artists and allies carrying the revolutionary fire of the Stonewall Uprising today.

Natalie Marlow is a working class writer who was born and still lives in the West Midlands. After completing her MA in Creative Writing at the UEA, she is now a PhD student at Birkbeck, University of London. She has taught Creative Writing both at Birkbeck and De Montfort University in Leicester. Natalie has a life-long obsession with hard-boiled detective fiction and film noir, and is a crime writer with a strong interest in the writing of place. Raymond Williams and Raymond Chandler are firm favourites of hers.

Layla McCay is Director of Policy at the NHS Confederation and leads the national Health and Care LGBTQ+ Leaders Network. A psychiatrist and founder of the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health, her co-authored book Restorative Cities: Urban Design for Mental Health and Wellbeing (2021) was a finalist for the Great Places Book Award. She features regularly in print and broadcast media, from The Financial Times to BBC Question Time and Radio 4. She is also an award-winning performance storyteller and founder of the show Perfect Liars Club in Washington, Tokyo and London. She writes the biannual Reading Shoes blog.

Eleanor Medhurst is a lesbian fashion historian and the founder of the blog Dressing Dykes, which she created to be an accessible online resource for the history of lesbian fashion. She has a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in fashion history and currently works as a researcher, writer, and freelance lecturer. Her research is due to be published in the edited collection Crafted with Pride: Queer Craft and Contemporary Activism in Britain in 2022.

Frances Mensah Williams is an award-winning author, Human Resources/Business Consultant, and Executive Coach. The founder and Chief Executive of Interims for Development, a UK-based Human Resources, training, and coaching consultancy, she has consulted on and led projects in the UK and for international clients in Ghana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and other parts of Africa. She is also the founder and Managing Editor of ReConnect Africa.com and was awarded a CBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the 2020 New Year’s Honours List for services to the African community in the UK and in Africa.

Yen Ooi is a writer-researcher whose works explore cultural storytelling and its effects on identity. She is currently working towards her PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London, specialising in the development of Chinese science fiction by diaspora writers and writers from Chinese-speaking nations. She is also author of Sun: Queens of Earth (novel) and A Suspicious Collection of Short Stories and Poetry (collection). When she’s not writing, Yen lectures at Westminster University’s MA Creative Writing course, and is a mentor in marketing and publishing.

After graduating from Slade School of Fine Art with a 1st, Bronwen has produced and directed films for Channel 4, BBC, The New York Times, Tate, Christies, Nowness, Vice, and has exhibited her films and photography worldwide.

Grace Quantock is a writer, psychotherapeutic counsellor and researcher. Grace’s work focusses on embodiment, trauma, creative arts and marginalised bodies. She was shortlisted for both the Nan Shepherd Prize and the Writers’ & Artists’ Working-Class Writers’ Prize 2021. Grace has been published or has essays forthcoming in The Guardian, The Metro and The New Statesman.

The Whale Tattoo is Jon Ransom’s first novel. Winner of the National Centre for Writing 2019 Escalator mentoring scheme for early career fiction writers. Jon was the recipient of an Arts Council England TLC Free Reads Prize, and an excerpt of his writing was selected for the inaugural TLC Free Reads Anthology. In 2018 Jon was awarded an Arvon grant to attend the residential course Fiction: Work in Progress. His short stories have appeared in SAND Journal, Foglifter Press and Five:2:One, among others. Jon’s writings have been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and 2019 Lambda Literary LGBTQ Anthology. Jon grew up in Norfolk and is currently at work on his second novel.

Kai Spellmeier grew up surrounded by fairytale books and children’s detective novels. He was raised in Germany, spent a year in New Zealand, and returned to Europe to study Literature and English in Berlin and Edinburgh. He has been blogging about queer books on Instagram since 2016. He draws strength and inspiration from the knowledge that queer people have always been here and forever will be. His head is filled with infinite stories and he writes unapologetically queer literature.

Vasundra Tailor is a consultant pharmacist who was born in India, brought up in Zimbabwe, then moved to the UK to further her studies. She travels widely and loves to meet people from different backgrounds and cultures, learning from them about their hopes and passions, their way of life. She is curious about relationships within families, communities and the way people connect with others in the wider world. Her novel extract won the second runner up prize for the Mo Siewcharran Fiction Competition in November 2019.

Juno Roche is a writer and campaigner whose work around class, gender, sexuality and trans lives has been funded by the likes of The Paul Hamlyn Foundation and described as ‘provocative and innovative’. Juno studied Fine Art and Philosophy at Brighton, and English Literature at Sussex, and has written for a wide range of publications including Bitch magazine, Dazed, Vice, Broadly, Cosmopolitan, the i, The Independent, i-D, the Tate magazine, Refinery29 and The Victoria and Albert Museum. They are the author of four books: Queer Sex, Trans Power, Gender Explorers, and their memoir, A Working-Class Family Ages Badly.

Eva Verde is a writer from Forest Gate, East London. Identity and class are recurring themes throughout her work as she studies towards an MA in Prose Fiction. Her love song to libraries, I Am Not Your Tituba forms part of Kit De Waal’s Common People: An Anthology of Working-Class Writers with Unbound, and her work has featured in Marie Claire, Grazia and Elle. Eva’s debut novel Lives Like Mine, is published by Simon and Schuster. Eva lives in Essex with her husband, children and dog.

Scarlett is a 17-year-old climate justice activist and journalist. She has been named one of Forbes’ Top 100 UK Environmentalists and featured in the National Geographic’s 26 Changemakers. She is a 2020 recipient of both the Women of the Future Young Star Award and IPPR Big Ideas Prize, and a 2021 recipient of the Diana Award and the NCH Economics prize. She is both the youngest person in the world to have an A level in Government and Politics, which she taught herself at 13, and the youngest regular policywriter globally too.

Kimberly has a degree in English with Linguistics and a Masters degree in Inclusive Education and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. She currently works in secondary education and is passionate about giving young people in Manchester space on the bookshelf.

Hafsa Zayyan is a co-winner of the inaugural 2019 New Writer’s Prize. Her debut fiction novel, We are all Birds of Uganda, explores themes of belonging, generational divides, race and faith, and will be published by Penguin Random House (Merky Books) in July 2020. Hafsa currently works as a dispute resolution lawyer in central London.