Celia A Sorhaindo is a poet from the Caribbean island of Dominica, where she now resides after living many years in the UK. Her poetry has been widely published in journals ranging from The Caribbean Writer to New Daughters of Africa, and longlisted for the UK National Poetry Competition (2017/18). Her first pamphlet, ‘Guabancex’ (Papillote Press, 2020) was longlisted for the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean literature, and her poem ‘Weather Conditions’ was among the winners of Poetry Archive’s WordView 2020 Collection. Her first full length poetry collection, ‘Radical Normalisation’, is due to be published in the autumn of 2022 (Carcanet Press).  

Malika Booker is the author of ‘Breadfruit’ (Flipped Eye Publishing, 2007) and ‘Pepper Seed’ (Peepal Tree Press, 2013), which was longlisted for the 2014 OCM Bocas Prize and shortlisted for the 2014 Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. More recently, she has won the 2019 Cholmondeley Award and the 2020 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. 

Keith Jarret is a former UK Poetry Slam Champion and FLUPP International Poetry Slam Winner from London. He rose to prominence on the city’s performance poetry scene and was one of the first writers to study on the groundbreaking Spoken Word Educators programme at Goldsmiths University.

Rachel Long is the founder of Octavia Poetry Collective for Womxn of Colour, a ‘fiercely community-minded’ collective formed in direct response to the lack of inclusivity and representation in literature and the academy.