Reshma Ruia is the winner of the Word Masala Debut Poet 2019 Award. This event celebrates her collection A dinner Party in the Home Counties as part of the award. She is an author of two novels, Something Black in the Lentil Soup and A Mouthful of Silence, shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize. Her short stories and poetry have appeared in British and international publications and commissioned for radio. She is the co-founder of The Whole Kahani-a writers’ collective.

You will be pleased with discovering award-winning poet Reshma Ruia. Her voice is intimate and confident. Her poetry shines bright. Reshma lures the reader into her world through a vivid imagination. From the empty bed of an accountant to the code of 1947, Reshma’s skill is in how she paints pictures with words, which become whole landscapes and scenes in one’s imagination. I feel I am reading someone whom everyone will be reading in future. Read her now! - Lemn Sissay MBE

Reshma Ruia will read from her collection available at the venue for purchase.

Rishi Dastidar’s poetry has been published by Financial Times, New Scientist and the BBC amongst many others. His debut collection Ticker-tape is published by Nine Arches Press, and a poem from it was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2018. A member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, he is also chair of the London writer development organisation Spread The Word. Rishi wrote and judged the meme poetry challenge on Young Poets Network.

'Afterwardness' by Mimi Khalvati is the Poetry Book Society Winter Wild Card and her ninth collection to be published by Carcanet. She is known as the queen of form, famed for adapting the ghazal to English use, and in this book she puts the Petrarchan sonnet to striking, unfamiliar use, widening the possibilities of the form.

Todd Swift's poetry is translated into and published in many languages. In 2003, Swift edited the chapbook series Poets Against The War. In 2004 he was Poet-in-residence for Oxfam and ran the Oxfam summer poetry festival, which featured Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, and Wendy Cope. With many collections and anthologies to is credit, he lives in Marylebone Village, London and runs Eyewear Publishing.

Yogesh Patel edits Skylark and runs Skylark Publications UK as well as a non-profit Word Masala Foundation. He has been honoured with the Freedom of the City of London. With LP records, films, radio, children’s book, fiction and non-fiction books, and three poetry collections to his credit, in April 2019 he was the Poet-of-Honor at the New York University. His recent collection of poems is Swimming with Whales.