‘I feel similarly when I’m watching a horror film to when I am reading poetry, like some kind of truth of the world is being exposed.’ Rachael Allen on opening herself to extreme states and alternative forms to reach, and make, the new in Kingdomland.
‘I would like this book to show people some of the many ways you can f**k with gender rather than always being f**ked over by it” : Dean Atta on growing up Black and queer and coming out to yourself, and the world, in feathery, rasor sharp, high-heeled drag in The Black Flamingo.
‘I’m trying to write the stories not only of how my family suffered, but also how they survived’: Natalie Linh Bolderston on witnessing and healing in ‘The Protection of Ghosts’.
‘As long as the body is moving/ the heart will follow’: Troy Cabida on how “tenderness becomes a strength” when writing into the bi-cultural, bi-queer British-Filipinx space – and how he is taking to the skies with his Bad Betty debut ‘War Dove’ despite lockdown.
‘I want the poems to be hospitable to multiple voices. I want them to be porous – a kind of listening device, as well as a speaking device’ : Linda Gregerson on making art by ‘running forward in the dark.’
‘I am a different person in one language than I am in another’: L.Kiew on combining Teo Chew, Hokkien and English in ‘The Unquiet’ – then rewriting privilege by letting words become ‘beasts that rub up against each other’.
“Ask yourself what makes you unique, different and amazing”: Arji Manuelpillai on saying the difficult thing in his debut ‘Mutton Rolls’ by “reflecting the way the mind moves” and embracing “exclusion as a force of creativity.”
‘When your mother is being unmotherly, it’s taboo to show that’ : Karen Smith on the transformative power of creating in her debut ‘Schist’.
‘I started writing fundamentally because I felt represented when I read Black writers, and then I felt that it was my duty as well to contribute.’