Polari Literary Salon

Paul Burston is curator and host of award-winning LGBTQ+ literary salon Polari and founder of the Polari Prize book awards for LGBTQ+ writers, based at the British Library. In 2016, he featured in the British Council’s Global List of ’33 visionary people promoting freedom, equality and LGBT rights around the world’. Paul Burston is the author of six novels and five non-fiction books and the editor of two short-story collections. His memoir We Can Be Heroes: A Survivor’s Story (published by Little A) is a tale of living through two pandemics, surviving two near death experiences and battling his own demons.

Dr Golnoosh Nour is an Iranian poet, fiction writer, and creative writing lecturer based in the UK. She is the author of The Ministry of Guidance and Other Stories and Rocksong; both were shortlisted for the Polari Prize. Her poetry pamphlet Impure Thoughts was published by Verve Poetry Press in 2022. She’s performed her work in literature festivals and events across the UK and internationally. Her work has also been published by Granta, Vintage, and Columbia Journal.

Jay Gadhia has always written things but the catalyst in spoken word poetry was attending an online men’s writing group during lockdown. He tends to focus on the Asian queer experience, his cultural / racial history, faith and the complications of relationships. He’s recently fallen in love with the haiku as a poetic format and written observational and comedic haikus that have been performed at spoken word open mic events. He’s enjoying the process of creating a narrative and performing as well as making friends with a whole new tribe.

Karen McLeod is a writer, performer, creative writing tutor and writer-in-residence at Bookseller Crow. Her debut novel, In Search of the Missing Eyelash, won the Betty Trask Award. She wrote ‘The Eyelash’ in hotel rooms across the globe while working as cabin crew. Coming full circle, her soon to be published memoir, Lifting Off is about the years she worked as cabin crew. When she’s not writing, or talking about writing, or thinking about writing, she can be found treading the boards at theatres, cabaret clubs and pubs as the self-appointed Poet Laureate of Penge, Barbara Brownskirt.

Dean Atta is an award-winning author and performance poet. He won the 2012 London Poetry Award and was named as one of the most influential LGBT people by the Independent on Sunday Pink List. He has written two YA novel-in-verses which includes The Black Flamingo which was a top-selling debut of 2020, and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, CILIP Carnegie Medal, the Jhalak Prize and the YA Book Prize. The Black Flamingo was also awarded the prestigious Stonewall Book Award and the Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Award 2020. Person Unlimited is his non-fiction debut.