Malika Booker is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian parentage, and co-founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (a writer’s collective). Her pamphlet Breadfruit (flippedeye, 2007) received a Poetry Society recommendation, and her poetry collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press, 2013) was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize for first full collection. She is published with the poets Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire in The Penguin Modern Poet Series 3: Your Family: Your Body (2017). A Cave Canem Fellow and inaugural Poet in Residence at The Royal Shakespeare Company, Booker was awarded the Cholmondeley Award (2019) for outstanding contribution to poetry and elected a Royal Society of Literature Fellow (2022). She is the first woman to win the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem twice: The Little Miracles (2020) and Libation (2023).

Keisha Thompson FRSA is a Manchester based writer, performance artist and producer.  She is currently the Programme Manager for Legacies of Enslavement Programme at The Guardian. She is Co-Chair of the Independent Theatre Council, a trustee of Olympias Music Foundation. 

As a part of the University of Manchester’s bicentenary she was acknowledged as one of 200 alumni to be a part of the bicentenary way. She also holds an honorary fellowship with them.

In 2024, she published a chapbook of sculptural poetry called Dé-rive as a part of T.S. Elliot residency with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Michael Rosen is one of Britain’s best loved writers and performance poets for children and adults.  He is currently Professor of Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London where he co-devised and teaches an MA in Children’s Literature.   

Michael is also a popular broadcaster and has presented BBC Radio 4’s acclaimed programme about language, “Word of Mouth” since 1998, as well as regularly presenting documentary programmes for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3.  

Michael writes a monthly open “letter” to the Secretary of State for Education in The Guardian where he critiques Government policy on schools from the standpoint of a parent.  He visits schools, teachers’ conferences and university teacher training departments where he is in demand to give performances, workshops and keynote addresses.

His YouTube Channel ‘Kids’ Poems and Stories with Michael Rosen’ has had over 55 million views.

Kate Ireland is a Glasgow-born poet, artist, and performer whose work weaves together lyricism, humour, and emotional insight. She has co-written and performed in a range of theatrical productions, including This Town (Contact Theatre, Derby Theatre), Experiments in Rest (Camden People’s Theatre, Schwankhalle Out Now Festival), and Who Is Your Mummy and Where Did She Go? (Waterside Arts). She also created the immersive audio drama ELEVATION in collaboration with Breaking Barriers, guiding audiences on a sonic journey across Blackstone Edge in the Rochdale moors.

Kate’s one-woman show, Golden Time (and other behavioural management strategies), premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2025, and her debut poetry collection will be published by Burning Eye in 2026. Her poetry has been featured on BBC 6 Music and showcased at Glastonbury and the Roundhouse.

Kate Fox is a stand-up poet, spoken word artist and broadcaster. She is a regular contributor to Radio 4’s spoken word cabaret “The Verb”, has made two comedy series for Radio 4, been Poet in Residence for the Glastonbury Festival and the Great North Run and completed a PhD in stand-up comedy. 

She is the author of “Where There’s Muck There’s Bras: True Stories of the North of England’s Women” published by Harper North, and poetry collections including “On Sycamore Gap” (Harper North, 2024), “Bigger On the Inside” (Smokestack Books, 2024) and “The Oscillations” (Nine Arches Press, 2021). She is also a neurodivergent advocate whose latest show “Bigger on the Inside” explores neurodiversity through the lens of Doctor Who.

John Hegley was born in North London to whose environs he has returned, after education in Luton, Bristol and Bradford University. He has for many years been involved in the creation of songs, poems, books, radio programmes, festival performances and cardboard animals. A former BBC on-line poet and poet in residence at Keats House, he was one of the guest performers at a women’s prison, in Medellin, Columbia, has been honoured with a doctorate from the University of Bedfordshire, was nominated for the Edinburgh Fringe Perrier Award and described in The Independent as ‘awesomely mundane’.

Photo credit: Suzi Corker

Kareem Parkins-Brown is a writer and visual artist who is obsessed with humour, surrealism, grief & Londonisms. He performs at museums, art galleries, libraries, cafes, bookshops, pubs, backgardens, conference centres, people’s dreams, nightmares all over. His first pamphlet, Oi You Lot, came out in 2024 with Little Betty. It was Radio 4’s Poetry Book of the Month.

Testament is an award winning writer, educator, rapper, world record breaking beatboxer. Testament’s plays include the acclaimed Black Men Walking (Royal Court
Theatre London/Royal Exchange Manchester) and Orpheus In The Record Shop (Opera North/Leeds Playhouse). Testament’s BBC Radio 4 spoken word drama Daughter won Special Commendation at the Audiodrama Awards 2022 and was nominated for the Prix Europa. His work has been performed on BBC TV, Sky Arts and Disney Plus. He is currently host of The Adverb on BBC Radio 4. Testament is also is a writer on the NETFLIX show Castlevania Nocturne.

Bradley Taylor is an award-winning poet born and based in Birmingham. In 2024 he won the Roundhouse Poetry Slam, the night of which was the biggest poetry slam in history. In 2025 he released his debut collection ‘You Missed The Best Part’ before embarking on a nationwide tour. He writes for, and about, people.

Bradley has appeared at the Hay Festival, Cheltenham Literature Festival, The Inspirational Youth Awards, on BBC News and on BBC Radio 6 Music as part of Craig Charle’s ‘Class of 2024’, in which Craig Charles described him as ‘A brand new voice and a fresh perspective on the art of poetry and performance’.

Bradley’s work has appeared in Gutter Magazine, Shooter, Strix and across Birmingham train stations as part of Birmingham Hippodrome’s collaboration with photographer Paul Stringer’s project The City That Spoke To Me. He also co-hosts The Big Gay Poetry Night alongside M. L. Walsh.

Safiya Kamaria is a distinguished choreopoet, celebrated for her compelling performance style and profound exploration of Black British and Caribbean history. Early in her career, in 2020, she was a multi-slam champion and honoured with The New Voice in Poetry Prize and were shortlisted for both the Out-Spoken Page Poetry Prize and the Creative Future Writer’s Award. 

Her debut poetry collection, Cane, Corn & Gully, offers an insightful exploration of the lives of enslaved Black Barbadian women and their descendants.

Currently, Safiya is an alumna of the Obsidian Foundation. She is pursuing a PhD in Cultural Studies, and her pioneering methodology, which integrates kinaesthetic, linguistic, and ethnographic documentation into the development of literature and live theatre is set to be completed in 2026.