Will Burns is a poet and novelist. He first came to prominence in 2014 as a Faber New Poet and has since authored poetry collections ‘Country Music’ (Offord Road Books, 2020) which won the 2021 Laurel Prize for best first collection, & ‘Germ Songs’ (Rough Trade Books, 2019). He released the album Chalk Hill Blue in 2019, a collaboration with composer Hannah Peel whose music was set to his poems. (Hannah Peel, 2019.) His debut novel, The Paper Lantern (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2021) saw Burns named among The Observer’s Top 10 Debut Novelists of 2021. He is Poet-In-Residence at Caught By The River.

Roger Robinson is a fervent, generous poet. His most recent collection, A Portable Paradise, won both the 2019 T. S. Eliot Prize and the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize 2020 for a distinguished work evoking the spirit of a place – in this instance, post-Windrush Britain.

Makhosazana (Khosi) Xaba’s poetry, fiction and academic work reflects a lifetime actively involved with politics. Born in Greytown, Kwazulu-Natal, Xaba is trained as both a midwife and a psychiatric nurse, has worked with national and international NGOs and media organisations in…

Dick Davis, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, has been hailed by the TLS as ‘our finest translator of Persian poetry’, and retired in 2012 from the Ohio State University where he was Professor of Persian and Chair…

Moniza Alvi was born in Lahore, Pakistan, came to England when she was a few months old, and grew up in Hatfield. The experience she describes in her recording of ‘growing up… and feeling half-Pakistani… on the edge of things’…

James Matthews, poet, writer and publisher, has produced five books of poetry, a collection of short stories, a novel and an anthology of poetry, which he edited. Most of his work was banned under the previous government and was translated…