Polari Literary Salon

Fiona Keating is a journalist and editor, covering world news, travel and current affairs as well as history and archaeology. She has worked for ITN, IBTimes, SKY, the Independent, and the Guardian. She was born in Penang, Malaysia, is from Chinese/Irish heritage and has lived in London since she was two years old. She completed the Crime Writing MA at City St George’s, University of London (now the Creative Writing MA), and lives in Greenwich with her partner. Smoke and Silk is her debut novel, published by Headline. She is currently working on her second book.

Jason Okundaye was born in 1997 in South London, where he remains. His essays and features have been published in the Guardian, Evening Standard, British GQ and the London Review of Books, amongs others. Revolutionary Acts: Love & Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain is his first book; it was a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing.

Paul’s debut novel, The Good Son, won The Polari First Book Prize and The McCrea Literary Award, and was shortlisted for many others including The Prix du Roman Cezam. His play, Big Man, premiered at The Lyric Theatre and won an Irish Times Theatre Award in 2023. His short stories have been in anthologies, journals and newspapers, and read on BBC Radio 3, 4 and 5, RTE Radio, as well as, Sky ARTS. His debut collection of short stories, Hear You, all commissioned by BBC Radio 4, was published in March 2025. Paul has edited three anthologies and his writing has been translated into eight languages.

VG Lee is a novelist and short story writer. Her work has appeared in numerous and diverse publications including Queer Life, Queer Love 2 (Muswell Press 2023), Poetry Review, Beyond Bedlam (Anvil), The Lady Magazine, Diva Magazine and more recently The Guardian.

In 2017, her fifth novel Mr Oliver’s Object of Desire was runner up for the Diva/YLVA Publishing Literary Prize for Fiction. In 2022 she was long-listed for the BBC National Short Story Competition. Lee is also a judge for the prestigious Polari Book Prize.

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.