Joy FrancisHon. FRSL (born 1965) is an English journalist, editor and communications strategist. She has been editor of Pride Magazine , was the founder of The Creative Collective, and is the founder and executive director of the social enterprise Words of Colour.
Francis started as a journalist in 1992, working for Community Care , where she became deputy features editor. In 1998 she created and was launch editor of Public Sector, a weekly newspaper supplement for African Caribbean and Asian professionals in the public sector. Public Sector was shortlisted for Best Specialist Publication in the 2000 Commission for Racial Equality Race in the Media Awards. [1]
In 2000 she was appointed editor of Pride Magazine , but left the magazine after producing three issues, blaming lack of support. [2] Her organization The Creative Collective arranged internships for ethnic minority media students, launched a quarterly glossy magazine called Mediavibe, and worked with Black Britain Online to develop resources to encourage more racially inclusive television and press content. [1]
In 2016 Francis was appointed project manager of the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowships. [3] In June 2020 Words of Colour, in collaboration with University College London, launched Take Flight Hub, a virtual development programme to provide support for emerging black and Asian writers. [4]
Francis was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022. [5]
Dame Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, and her term expired in 2019. She was the first female poet, the first Scottish-born poet and the first openly lesbian poet to hold the Poet Laureate position.
Room is a Canadian quarterly literary journal that features the work of emerging and established women and genderqueer writers and artists. Launched in Vancouver in 1975 by the West Coast Feminist Literary Magazine Society, or the Growing Room Collective, the journal has published an estimated 3,000 women, serving as an important launching pad for emerging writers. Room publishes short fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, art, feature interviews, and features that promote dialogue between readers, writers and the collective, including "Roommate" and "The Back Room". Collective members are regular participants in literary and arts festivals in Greater Vancouver and Toronto.
Kadija George, Hon. FRSL, also known as Kadija Sesay, is a British literary activist, short story writer and poet of Sierra Leonean descent, and the publisher and managing editor of the magazine SABLE LitMag. Her work has earned her many awards and nominations, including the Cosmopolitan Woman of Achievement in 1994, Candace Woman of Achievement in 1996, The Voice Community Award in Literature in 1999 and the Millennium Woman of the Year in 2000. She is the General Secretary for African Writers Abroad and organises the Writers' HotSpot – trips for writers abroad, where she teaches creative writing and journalism courses.
The Asian American Writers' Workshop is a New York–based nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 1991 to support Asian American writers, literature and community. Cofounders Curtis Chin, Christina Chiu, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, and Bino A. Realuyo created AAWW because they were searching for New York City community of writers of color who could provide support for new writers.
Joy Harjo is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms. Harjo is a member of the Muscogee Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv. She is an important figure in the second wave of the literary Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, completed her undergraduate degree at University of New Mexico in 1976, and earned an MFA degree at the University of Iowa in its creative writing program.
Luisa A. Igloria is a Filipina American poet and author of various award-winning collections, and is the most recent Poet Laureate of Virginia (2020-2022).
Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo is a British author and academic. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, making her the first Black woman to win the Booker. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and President of the Royal Society of Literature, the second woman and the first black person to hold the role since it was founded in 1820.
Samiya A. Bashir is an American lesbian poet and author. Much of Bashir's poetry explores the intersections of culture, change, and identity through the lens of race, gender, the body and sexuality. She is currently associate professor of creative writing at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
The White Review is a London-based magazine on literature and the visual arts. It is published in print and online.
Paula Jane Kiri Morris is a New Zealand novelist, short-story writer editor and literary academic. She is an associate professor at the University of Auckland and founder of the Academy of New Zealand Literature.
Margaret Yvonne Busby,, Hon. FRSL, also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's youngest and first black female book publisher when she and Clive Allison (1944–2011) co-founded the London-based publishing house Allison and Busby in the 1960s. She edited the anthology Daughters of Africa (1992), and its 2019 follow-up New Daughters of Africa. She is a recipient of the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature. In 2020 she was voted one of the "100 Great Black Britons". In 2021, she was honoured with the London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2023, Busby was named as president of English PEN.
Morgan Parker is an American poet, novelist, and editor. She is the author of poetry collections Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, There are More Beautiful Things than Beyoncé, and Magical Negro, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also author of the young adult novel, Who Put This Song On.
Joelle Taylor RSL is a poet, playwright and author. She settled in London after hitchhiking there from Lancashire, where she was brought up.
Sarah Quigley is a New Zealand-born writer.
Gaby Wood, Hon. FRSL, is an English journalist, author and literary critic who has written for publications including The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, London Review of Books, Granta, and Vogue. She is the literary director of the Booker Prize Foundation, appointed in succession to Ion Trewin and having taken over the post at the conclusion of the prize for 2015.
Jacaranda Books is a Black owned British independent book publishing firm launched in 2012 and known for their effort promoting diversity in United Kingdom's publishing industry.
Raymond Antrobus is a British poet, educator and writer, who has been performing poetry since 2007. In March 2019, he won the Ted Hughes Award for new work in poetry. In May 2019, Antrobus became the first poet to win the Rathbones Folio Prize for his collection The Perseverance, praised by chair of the judges as "an immensely moving book of poetry which uses his deaf experience, bereavement and Jamaican-British heritage to consider the ways we all communicate with each other." Antrobus was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020.
Rachel Hewitt is a writer of creative non-fiction, and lecturer in creative writing at Newcastle University.
SuAndi OBE is a British performance poet, writer and arts curator. Based in North West England, she is particularly acknowledged for raising the profile of black artists in the region as well as nationally. Since 1985 she has been Cultural Director of the National Black Arts Alliance. She was appointed an OBE in 1999 for her contributions to the Black Arts sector.
Khadijah Ibrahiim is a literary activist, theatre maker and writer from Leeds. She is the founder and artistic director of Leeds Young Authors, and executive producer of the documentary ‘We Are Poets’. She and her work have appeared on BBC Radio 1Xtra, BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4.