We’re really excited to share the full programme for Deptford Literature Festival 2025.
Taking place from Thursday 27 to Sunday 30 March 2025, the festival will be popping up in spaces across Deptford.
Deptford Literature Festival is a literature festival with the local community at its heart. 71 local writers, artists and performers have been programmed to take part this year!
There’s something for everyone: live performances and music, a children’s and young people programme, talks and workshops for aspiring writers and curious readers, walking tours, zine- and book-making, open mic sessions and so much more. Artists taking part include Caleb Azumah Nelson, Emma Warren, Nathan Bryon, Irenosen Okojie and Santanu Bhattacharya, amongst many others.
As ever, access is at the heart of the festival: 45 of the 48 events in our programme are free to attend; all in-person events Friday-Sunday will offer BSL interpretation and all online events will be captioned. Six filmed events will be available to view online for one month after the festival, and Festival At Home activities will enable aspiring writers of all ages take part from wherever they are.
Come and join us! Although they are free, all events do need to be booked in advance. Explore the programme and save your place now!
You can find out more information about accessibility at this years festival on our access page. If you have any questions or would like to chat with one of the team, please contact us on [email protected].
The headline event on Friday 28 March, Lewisham Lyricists curated by Emma Warren, is a paid for event. Free tickets are available for Lewisham residents. To find out how to claim your free ticket please look at our bursaries page.
class="post-72228 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-news"Second Public Meeting for Borough of Literature Campaign
The second of four public meetings will bring together local community members and grassroots community groups around our campaign to make Lewisham the UK’s first ever Borough of Literature. Future meetings will seek to bring together educators, local businesses, young people and artists, arts organisations and activists to influence the shape of the UK’s first Borough of Literature.
These public meetings are to inform the community about the campaign, as well as to generate ideas for what a Borough of Literature could look like in Lewisham. They will inform a funding bid to generate the income we need to bring the Borough of Literature to life. If you live or work in Lewisham, we’d love to see you at one or all of our public meetings.
Together we will develop an exciting plan for a Borough of Literature that funders cannot resist. Our hope is that we can also help to connect leaders, educators, creatives and community organisers from across the borough, supporting a a vibrant literary community in Lewisham.
Where and when
The meeting will take place on Tuesday 4 February from 6 – 8pm at The Fellowship Inn, Randlesdown Road London SE6 3BT.
It is free to attend but please do save your seat on Eventbrite
Access at the meeting
The event is a relaxed event. There are accessible toilets available. If you have any other access requirements please get in touch with Courtney ([email protected]) so that we can support your attendance.
About the Borough of Literature
Spread the Word has a big, bold vision to see Lewisham declared as the UK’s first Borough of Literature. Lewisham is rich with word-related creative activities and is home to some of London’s best new writers and famous authors, as well as many arts charities working with words, stories, and poetry, and many more that include creative writing, publishing, spoken word and other art forms like filmmaking and music. You can find out more about the campaign and how to share your ideas over on our project page.
class="post-71903 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-news"Campaign Update December 2024: Lewisham, Borough of LiteratureLaunched at the Deptford Literature Festival in March 2024, our bold campaign to name Lewisham the UK’s first Borough of Literature has been steadily progressing all year. As 2024 draws to a close, we wanted to share an update on where we have got to so far, and what is still to come.
Ten local Lewisham residents have signed up to become our Advisory Group. They have had their first meeting and will meet regularly in the coming months. Their role is to help us to shape the campaign and the bid that will be submitted in 2025 to hopefully make the Borough of Literature a reality. We’re thrilled to have brought together such a brilliant and enthusiastic group that includes local childrens authors, poets, fiction writers, arts professionals and educators. They are:
You can learn more about the advisory group on our project page.
Some of the group have shared why they’re excited to be a part of the campaign to create a Borough of Literature in Lewisham:
“I am thrilled to join the Advisory Group, working towards the realisation of our goal to make Lewisham the UK’s first Borough of Literature. Achieving success would equip us with a powerful platform to boost writing and creativity in our communities.” – Nadine Grandison Mills
“Lewisham is chocka-block full of stories and storytellers – past, present and future. I’m so excited to work with my local community to show that creative activities can improve your life and provide opportunities, regardless of your age, background or income.” – Becka White
“Lewisham has a proud literary heritage, and is one of the best places on earth to encounter the written (or spoken or sung) word. It is a borough that’s full of creative energy, full of history and full of stories. It has been London’s Borough of Culture. Now’s the time to make it London’s first Borough of Literature!” – Dr Michael Eades
“I wanted to join the advisory panel because I work in the Lewisham community, and I am excited to work with arts organisations to include as many people as possible in the Borough of Literature!” – Ellie Spirrett
“I’m excited to be part of a campaign that celebrates Lewisham and uses storytelling to foster positive change in our community. As an educator in the borough, I have gained valuable insights into the perspectives of young people and my fellow educators. I look forward to sharing their perspectives.” – Karla Edwards
“I love the idea of Lewisham becoming a borough of literature and I am delighted to have been selected as a member of the Advisory Group. I am looking forward to working with the team and I am excited about beginning the work of exploring with them and the people of Lewisham, what a borough of literature might look like.” – Serena deCordova
“This year’s report by the National Literacy Trust reveals that just 1 in 3 children and young people enjoy reading in their own time. This is a rallying cry to all of us – parents, carers, schools, libraries, booksellers, writers, publishers and performers. It’s time for our community in Lewisham to come together and face this challenge. To lead the way with a commitment to creativity and our neighbourhood.” – Lucy Macnab
“Lewisham is a borough absolutely brimming with creativity – becoming Borough of Literature will showcase local talent and inspire the next generation of writers, poets, and artists!” – Councillor Edison Huynh
On 29 November we convened our first public meeting to gather ideas from local people about the shape our Borough of Literature should take.
We had around 30 people join us at the Albany for a session that started with a discussion about all the literature-related activity that is already happening in Lewisham. Just a few of the projects that came up were: writing workshops for domestic workers and survivors of modern-day slavery; local literature festivals in Deptford, Catford and Manor House Gardens; collecting stories from senior citizens to create a book; getting authors into local schools; and various projects connecting literture and nature.
After mapping existing activity, we started collectively generating ideas for what our Borough of Literature could look like. This first meeting was focused on engaging with local literature and arts organisations, so we asked: What are your priorities as a local artist/ arts organisation? And what would a thriving literature ecosystem in the borough look like?
According to the 2021 census, Lewisham has the highest proportion of residents who are Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African of any local authority area. Languages spoken in the borough include: Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Arabic, East Asian and South Asian languages, and languages from Africa (unfortunately no more detail about specific languages is available). Lewisham is also a Borough of Sanctuary and the council has a focus on being a welcoming place for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. It’s not surprising therefore that conversation at the meeting highlighted how important it is to celebrate and support the diverse population of Lewisham.
Some of the things meeting attendees suggested the campaign should prioritise were: increasing interest in literature in other languages; making sure Lewisham is a safe space for people to tell their own stories, including non-English speakers, writers in exile and the LGBTQI+ community; the importance of an intergenerational approach; and championing a diversity of art forms. A key focus was making sure that the campaign doesn’t leave any section of our local community behind.
For the group, a thriving ecosystem looked like: connecting what happens inside and outside of schools, as well as what comes after formal education; opportunities for writers to meet amongst themselves as a support network; opportunities for writers to meet with publishers; providing equal opportunities to emerging writers and established authors; having a mapped ecosystem with access to affordable spaces for literature-related activities; and clear routes to connect with local businesses and other organisations.
This is just a snapshot of a really rich first discussion. We’d love to hear your thoughts too and have two more meetings coming up in the new year:
We will send out booking links for both meetings early in the new year. Please sign up to our newsletter if you’d like to receive the links.
We received some really brilliant proposals for our Borough of Literature commissions, titled ‘To All The Places I Have Read’. This made the decision making really hard! We had planned to commission just three writers, but in the end we have chosen four proposals by writers from different parts of the borough.
The commissioned writers are: Tutku Barbaros, Fathima Zahra, Erica Hesketh and Amii Griffith.
We don’t want to say too much about the proposed projects – you’ll be able to read the pieces in full and hear extracts read aloud by the writers at Deptford Literature Festival, in March 2025. Until then, you can learn more about our commissioned writers on the Borough of Literature project page.
class="post-71718 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-network-knowledge"Other Worlds Re-Imagined by Alex Falase-KoyaWhy am I the only black person in any of my Dungeon and Dragons groups? I started playing Dungeons and Dragons recently, and that’s a question I can’t get out of my head.
One of the first things you have to do when playing Dungeons and Dragons is to create a character. When I did that for the first time, the thing that immediately struck me is that most of the fantasy ‘races’ you can pick for your character are very similar to those you can find in The Lord of the Rings. Due to legal reasons, Hobbits are called Halflings, but elves, dwarves and orcs exist in Dungeons and Dragons just as they do in Middle Earth.
The Lord of the Rings books were published in the 1950s and have shaped almost all of medieval fantasy. Dungeons and Dragons isn’t the only one. Even pieces of fiction like Game of Thrones sometimes define themselves by the way they diverge from these expectations. These are powerful tropes that have had generations of staying power. And who set them? A white man in the mid-1950s. And not just one white man. Think of Robert E. Howard and C. S. Lewis. Sci-fi is the same. We have Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke.
I could go on. When we look at the titans of sci-fi and fantasy, the authors who have set the table for these genres; they are almost entirely white men. Even today things are not that different, but how could they be?
The very essence of sci-fi and fantasy, the dreams and nightmares that fuel its content are ones created traditionally by and for white men. This doesn’t mean that no one else can engage with or enjoy these genres of fiction, but it just isn’t made primarily for us, not totally, and deep down I think we know it.
When I was a teenager, I decided to write a sci-fi novel of my own. It was filled with big ideas and heavily inspired by the things I had read and watched beforehand. Its main characters were white, all of them. It wasn’t something I thought about consciously, it’s just what felt right for these genres. I’m a black man and even when creating my own story, I couldn’t see someone who looked like me at the centre of it. It felt wrong to have a black boy as the main character, and that sucks because look at the position of sci-fi and fantasy in our current culture.
Star Wars, Star Trek, all of superhero media, The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones. These aren’t niche pieces of geek culture; they are the most popular pieces of mass market storytelling.
When our society looks to escapism; sci-fi and fantasy are where we look, but these genres aren’t just a pleasant distraction. The pieces of work here are also some of our society’s biggest contributors to fictional allegory, it’s been a place for centuries where fiction is used to comment on and reflect on our culture.
Sci-fi and fantasy have a key role in our society, but they can’t truly fill that role, not in its current state. When genres like sci-fi and fantasy are predominantly written by one group of people for so long, the tropes and expectations that run through those genres don’t and can’t represent the needs of everyone else.
We have escapism, but for who and from what?
We have allegories, but what commentary do they wish to make about society and which ones do they not?
When we write about the future, whose future do we see?
We are missing something.
Imagine a version of sci-fi and fantasy that builds empathy between people by telling the stories and mythologies of a diverse group of people.
Imagine a version of sci-fi and fantasy that explores the hopes, dreams, and potential futures that all people have, not just a select few.
The saddest things though, are the things I can’t imagine. A fear I have sometimes is that our expectations and tropes about sci-fi and fantasy are so set in stone that any ideas I may have about the genres are just going to run downstream of the ideas some white men had eighty years ago.
When I was younger and I read and watched the Lord of the Rings, I knew deep down that on some level it was not for me, a black man. Pretty much all the characters in the story are white, the only dark-skinned characters were Orcs and goblins. But I fell in love with the world and the characters and the stories, so I felt like this didn’t matter. Last year, a prequel series to the Lord of the Rings was released, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
There was immediately controversy amongst a segment of the fanbase because non-white characters were added to the franchise for the first time. It was a shock to me when I heard this, but it wasn’t just the racism that hit me. It was the realisation that the whiteness of this piece of fiction, something I was overlooking because I loved it so much, was a thing some fans really liked and wanted to preserve.
And this isn’t just a Lord of the Rings thing, this same dynamic exists all across the genres of sci-fi and fantasy whenever any type of diversity is introduced into a long-running franchise.
When we tolerate a status quo where only white men can write popular sci-fi and fantasy, we attract and provide space within these genres for people who only want white men to be able to write sci fi and fantasy. If the only future we can depict in these genres is one by and for white men, then people who find that fact important will make these genres their homes.
But if that is true then surely the opposite is as well, and if that’s the case, then maybe we can make things better. Every segment of this industry has some amount of power to enact change, we just need to have the will to use it.
Publishers can look for and publish a diverse group of authors and better support the authors on their lists. Readers can be less conservative in their book buying choices and seek out and buy books by non-white authors. Established writers can seek to support and mentor other non-white writers.
This can all be done today. And maybe if it is then sometime in the future I might find another black person in one of my Dungeon and Dragons groups.
Children’s author Alex Falase-Koya has been reading and writing since he was a teenager. His debut novel ‘Marv and the Mega Robot’ was inspired after Alex struggled to find superheroes in fiction who looked like him. By creating Marv, a superhero whose strengths are kindness and imagination, Alex hopes to have created a character to whom all children can relate. He is also the co-writer of Marcus Rashford’s first fictional book, The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Beast Beyond the Fence. A previous winner of Spread the Word’s 2018 London’s Writers Awards for YA and Children’s Fiction, Alex lives in Honor Oak with his two cats.
Illustration by Clio Isadora.
class="post-71714 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-network-knowledge"Love Re-imagined by Sara JafariFirst and foremost, I want to start with a love letter of sorts for the romance novel. With so much suffering and trauma in the world, romance is a genre that above all shows the power of human connection. Romance is joy. And in more traditional romances, one can expect a happy ever after; no matter the trials and tribulations the two characters face. It’s a genre that inspires hope. For many, reading love stories and romances has the power to be an act of self-care, a small luxury and promise that you’ll allow yourself some down time and escapism. As well as being a much-loved genre, romance novels are hugely profitable. Last year romance novels were reported as being the highest earning genre of fiction in the US. So, it’s safe to say the genre is beloved by many.
My own love of reading is partly owed to romances. I enjoyed books as a child, but it was when I was a teenager that I became a voracious reader. Young adult fantasy and paranormal romances were the books that triggered that change. When reading those stories, I was completely swept away and would spend whole weekends and summer holidays reading non-stop, only to eat or use the bathroom. And yet, despite this adoration of the romance genre, I often felt removed from the heroines in the stories. I enjoyed their worlds, and the love they experienced, but I had the sense that the protagonists weren’t like me. I very rarely related to them; I could put myself in their shoes, but I knew their shoes were not like mine. Consequently, ideas like romance and falling passionately in love appeared more like a fantasy, than a reality, for my teenage self.
Back then, I distinctly remember searching the internet for romance novels featuring British Iranian Muslims. Though, to be honest, I would have settled for Iranian, Muslim, or even Asian (the widest of brackets but even then, it was a struggle to find). I think one main pull of romance fiction is that you’re supposed to see yourself in the protagonist. This means you’ll be able to be swept away in their romance, and you’ll feel their conflict and hurt when things go wrong. And you will likely experience their joy when things do eventually go right at the end. But what message is it sending if the characters that get to experience such joy – and love – look nothing like you?
For myself, and numerous other people of colour, we are often required to make various leaps to imagine ourselves as the heroine in romance novels. As a British Iranian Muslim, my romantic experiences and background were starkly different to the characters I was reading as a teenager – and even now. Back then, I didn’t speak to boys, go to parties, or drink alcohol. So, seeing characters who did all these things, without any internal conflict such as feeling religious guilt, or external conflict from their family obstructing them from such behaviour, required a mental leap for me to imagine myself as them. Even beyond these deep-rooted character details, the visual aesthetics of most characters in a romance are often white and thin. If you read and watch enough romances, there is the danger that subliminally you might come to surmise that only white, thin women are deserving of grand and earth-shattering love. Given the fact that many of us begin reading romance novels as teenagers, such ideas can dangerously embed themselves into our minds without us even realising it.
The main reason I began writing, and wrote my debut novel The Mismatch, was because I longed to see myself reflected in a love story. I had never read a book featuring a British Iranian protagonist – and that is not for want of trying. We are hugely under-represented in literature generally, let alone in love stories. I wanted to write about my specific experience of being a British Iranian woman, who comes from a Muslim background, and navigating love and relationships for the first time in her early twenties. The sheer number of messages I received – and still receive – from women proclaiming it felt as though I had copied and pasted their lives in my novel astounded me. Many said it was the first time they’ve felt represented in literature, let alone a romance. I am glad I was able to provide that for some people – though I wish for more representation in publishing.
I wrote my novel not to represent every British Iranian Muslim, but one individual: my protagonist. I say this because while many related to my protagonist, some didn’t – and that is why we need more books by authors of different backgrounds. We don’t expect white authors to represent their entire community in one book, and so we shouldn’t expect that for authors of colour either. So, that’s why having truly diverse and inclusive publishing, not tokenistic publishing is needed, too.
Looking beyond ourselves, it’s also imperative to see a variety of people falling in love. Reading creates empathy, and it helps us understand each other. If we see people of many ethnicities and backgrounds in romance novels, it will no doubt send the message of unity – and that we are all deserving of brilliant love.
I reference this quote from Toni Morrison so much but it’s true: ‘If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it’. It takes so much to get a book published. Yes, we need more ‘diverse’ authors to write romances, but we also need publishers to pick these books up – to see the obvious need for these stories. We need them to put marketing budget behind such books to allow for a wide readership. We need investment. There are huge amounts of people who might shy away from reading (and writing) romance because they don’t see their experiences reflected within the pages and might think it’s not for them. It’s often in only seeing something that we can believe it. Beyond entertainment value, from a social responsibility standpoint, it is therefore immensely vital to see a range of people in love stories. Romance novels hold great power – and it’s long overdue that they reflect the society we live in.
Sara Jafari is a British-Iranian writer and editor. She is the author of THE MISMATCH and PEOPLE CHANGE (Penguin Random House). She founded and runs TOKEN Magazine, a platform which showcases writing and artwork by underrepresented writers and artists. Previously, she works in book publishing as an editor. She was in the London Writers Awards programme in 2018-19.
Illustration by Clio Isadora.
class="post-71640 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-news"Announcing the writers commissioned for our 30th anniversaryTo celebrate our 30th anniversary next year, Spread the Word are commissioning six London-based writers across two categories to create new writing. We’re excited to share with you the six chosen writers.
The Emerging Writer Commissions were open to unagented and unpublished writers from underrepresented backgrounds.
The commissions have been awarded to: Giselle Cory, Eliezer Gore and Naomi Walsh. These commissions were judged by Olumide Popoola and Joelle Taylor.
Judge Joelle Taylor said about the entries: “Choosing these shortlisted writers was a tough decision as we had such outstanding entries for the commission. But also, it was an easy decision, as these three writers brought such energy and excitement with them; as well as exceptional writing. I can’t wait to see how they develop across the programme, and to read the work they produce”
The 30th Anniversary Emerging Writer Commissions are generously supported by The London Community Foundation and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts.
The Deaf and Disabled Writer Commissions were open to writers facing disablist and/ or audist barriers.
The commissions have been awarded to Oli Isaac, Jamila Prowse and Ellie Spirrett. These commissions were judged by Ayesha Chouglay and Joe Rizzo Naudi.
Both commissions have an open brief and there is no theme which the work has to respond to. Instead, our selected writers are invited to be bold with their ideas, to experiment and take risks in their approach to style and content. The six commissioned writers are being matched with a mentor to work with on the short stories and poems they are writing, as well as to develop their writing careers. The finished pieces will be unveiled at Deptford Literature Festival in March 2025.
Giselle focuses on life writing, in particular how the small acts of life add up to our identity or come into conflict with it. They particularly enjoy work that tries to understand social history through the lens of personal experience. Recent favourite authors include Claire Keegan, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Maggie Nelson and Guadaulpe Nettel. Giselle splits her time between writing and a career in the charity sector, most recently leading a small charity.
Giselle said; “I can’t believe someone is commissioning me to write! This will be my first commission and publication, and it feels really good to be engaged as a writer in this way. I hope that being on the programme will help me better situate myself as a writer, build my confidence and most importantly, produce some work I’m proud of. I’m particularly excited for the mentoring element, and look forward to working with an experienced writer who can help me take the work from draft to fully formed thing.”
Eliezer Gore is a Zimbabwean-born artist who was raised in Lewisham. Through his art transforms concrete reality unveiling magical surrealist landscapes to deliver joyous affirming narratives.This year he staged an extract of his Debut Play “Return to Soil” at the Catford broadway for Lewisham Youth Theatre’s Hatch Festival. He is the 2024 Roundhouse poetry slam runner up, Born:: Free Writers Collective Alum and a Soho Writers Lab alum.
Eliezer said; “I’m looking forward to stretching my story telling ability by weaving a narrative across a series of poems.”
Naomi is a writer and creative based in SE London. Born and raised in Barnsley (South Yorkshire) to parents hailing from Sierra Leone and Liverpool, she likes to explore identity, mixing, sonder, and (be)longing in her work. After reading English at the University of Leeds, she spent 7 years working full time as a PR manager in London, earning a PR Week 30 Under 30 award, before going freelance in 2024 to pursue her writing.
Oli is a writer based in London. Their passion for writing stems from growing up with a severe stutter and experiencing how language can fail us. Currently, Oli is developing their debut audio play as a recipient of Audible Theatre’s Emerging Playwrights Fund. They also teach poetry workshops, most recently with The Learning Cooperative. In 2024, Oli won the Verve Poetry Festival Competition.
Ollie said; “I am so honoured to have been selected by Spread The Word for this writer’s commission. I am grateful that they took a chance to support this writing proposal, given that neither I nor them really know how the project is going to end up. That level of trust and confidence is deeply heartening. I will spend the winter writing and experimenting with reflective, non-fiction essays, each one anchored by my local community garden in South East London. Non-fiction essays are an expansion of my current writing practice, but it is one I’ve been keen to move towards and test out. In poetry, I can often hide meaning between layers; in plays, I can build entirely new worlds. However, I’ve always deeply admired writers who seamlessly blend the personal, the philosophical, the poetic in their essays. It’s a challenge but one I am so excited to embrace, particularly with the one-on-one support and guidance of a writing mentor, and the help of Spread The Word throughout it all.”
Jamila Prowse is an artist and writer, propelled by curiosity and a desire to understand herself. Informed by her lived experience of disability and mixed race ancestry, her work is research driven and indebted to Black feminist and crip scholars. She is an active participant in a rich and growing contemporary disabled artistic community and has been ongoingly researching, programming and creating around cripping the art world since 2018. Her writing has appeared in Frieze, Art Monthly and elsewhere.
Jamila said; “I’m extremely grateful and excited to be selected for the Spread the Word Deaf and Disabled Writers Commission. The opportunity comes at a time when I’ve had to rethink my practice in relation to an exacerbation in my disability and being signed off on long-term sick leave. It also marks the first time I’ve had dedicated professional development support around my writing. Doing so with the support and collaboration of disabled writers who inherently understand the unique barriers of living and working in an ableist world, means I feel uniquely understood and encouraged to find my way back to the process of writing, a form I’ve always returned to in order to better understand myself and my place in the world.”
Ellie is a poet, originally from Leeds, who started performing in Leicester and now lives in Greenwich. Ellie was a member of the Roundhouse collective in 2023/2024 and is now part of the Spread the Word Young Writers Collective. She writes about disability and ableism, chronic illness and the loneliness epidemic.
Ellie said; “I’ve never done anything like this before so I’m excited, nervous and proud. It’s great to be working somewhere where my disability is recognised and celebrated as part of what makes me me. I’m so excited to see where this takes me next as a writer.”