Writing Ourselves In | Contemporary Queer Stories

-The Brewery Yard Club is an official venue for the Rye Arts Festival 2022-

Doors open from 2.30pm, this performance will be followed by a separately ticketed event, Queer Poetry Soiree, and the bar will remain open until 11pm!

In the town that was home to ancestral homos Henry James and E.F. Benson, join us for a celebration of hidden queer histories illuminated in contemporary queer stories. With poet and performer Joelle Taylor, whose collection Cunto + Othered Stories won the TS Eliot Prize 2022, Costa Prize shortlisted writer and director Neil Bartlett, whose mosaic novel Address Book was published in 2021, and Sam Kenyon, writer of the RSC’s Miss Littlewood, whose debut novel I Am Not Raymond Wallace is published in September. Expect live readings and lively discussion. Chaired by Nathan Evans, editor of Inkandescent—shortlisted for Small Press of 2022 in the British Book Awards.

Joelle Taylor is an award-winning poet, playwright and author who has toured Europe, Australia, Brazil and South East Asia. She is widely anthologised, has written four poetry collections and three plays, and is currently completing her debut book of short stories, The Night Alphabet, with support from the Arts Council. A Radio 4 documentary about her art and life as a masculine woman, Butch, was broadcast in 2020. She has also featured on radio and TV programmes including The Verb (Radio 3). She founded SLAMbassadors, the UK’s national youth slam championships for the Poetry Society in 2001 and was its Artistic Director until 2018; she received a Change Maker Award from the Southbank Centre in recognition of the effect SLAMbassadors had on British culture. Her work is taught as part of the OCR GCSE syllabus. She is a Fellow of the RSA and was longlisted for the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship 2017 and 2019. She is the host and co-curator of Out-Spoken, the UK’s premier poetry and music club, currently resident at the Southbank Centre Purcell Room. Her most recent collection C+nto & Othered Stories won the 2022 TS Eliot Prize. www.joelletaylor.co.uk 

Neil Bartlett has been an acclaimed and pioneering voice in British queer culture since the 1980s. His first novel, Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall, was Capital Gay’s Book of the Year 1990. It went on to be translated into five European languages, and was recently republished by Profile as a Serpent’s Tail Classic. His second novel, Mr. Clive and Mr. Page, was nominated for the Whitbread Prize in 1996, his third, Skin Lane, was shortlisted for the Costa Award in 2007, his fourth, The Disappearance Boy, earnt him a nomination for Stonewall Author of the Year 2014. Neil is also a maker of rule-breaking performance and theatre. After a controversial early career, he was appointed Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith in 1994 and, in recognition of his work there, was awarded the O.B.E. in 2000. Since leaving the Lyric in 2005, he has created work for major cultural producers including the National Theatre, the RSC, the Manchester Royal Exchange, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Wellcome Foundation, Artangel, Tate Britain—and the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. His mosaic novel Addresss Book was published by Inkandescent in 2021. www.neil-bartlett.com 

Sam Kenyon

is a writer, composer, performer and vocal coach based in London.​ He and his work have appeared on numerous stages, from the West End and the RSC to regional theatres. He wrote the book, music and lyrics for Miss Littlewood, a musical about the life of maverick theatre director Joan Littlewood, which premiered at the RSC in 2018 and was nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award and a UK Theatre Award; the script is published by Samuel French. He read English at Cambridge University before training in Musical Theatre at the Royal Academy of Music. He is currently developing a musical about Samuel Steward. His debut novel, I am not Raymond Wallace, is published by Inkancescent September 2022. www.samuelkenyon.co.uk 

Nathan Evans is a writer, director and performer based in London whose work has been funded by Arts Council England, toured with the British Council, archived in the British Film Institute, broadcast on Channel 4 and presented at venues including Royal Festival Hall and Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Publishers of his poetry include Royal Society of Literature, Manchester Metropolitan University and Dead Ink. He was longlisted for Live Canon International Poetry Competition and his collection Threads was longlisted for Polari First Book Prize. His second collection CNUT is published by Inkandescent. www.nathanevans.co.uk