Emerging Writer Commissions

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.

Olumide Popoola is a Nigerian German writer. Her publications include a novella, short stories, poems, essays, creative nonfiction, a play, and the critically acclaimed novel When We Speak of Nothing. She holds a PhD in creative writing and has lectured in creative writing at various universities. She is the creator and leader of ‘The Future is Back’, a development scheme for emerging LGBTQ+ writers. She is currently touring her latest novel Like Water Like Sea, which was published in May 2024.

Joelle Taylor is a queer, working class author of six plays and four collections of poetry, most recently C+nto and Othered Poems, winner of the TS Eliot Prize and Polari Prize for LGBTQ+ literature. Her debut novel, The Night Alphabet, was published by Riverrun in 2024. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts, Taylor is the host and co-curator of Out-Spoken, the UK’s premier poetry and music club, currently resident at the Southbank Centre. She has featured regularly on BBC radio and television, and as a performer has toured the UK with Neil Bartlett’s stage adaptation of Derek Jarman’s Blue.