Join Bristol Women’s Literature Festival, Comma Press and a host of local poets for our launch party at Spike Island celebrating women’s writing.

The evening kicks off with a panel discussion on women’s writing and the future of Europe, featuring contributing authors to Comma Press’ Europa 28. Eleanor Pender is joined by Janne Teller and Karolina Ramqvist to discuss their writing, Europe, and cross border solidarity.

After a short interval to top up our drinks, the evening takes a poetic turn with performances from leading Bristol-based poets Malaika Kegode, Shagufta K Iqbal, and Rebecca Kosick.

It’s the perfect way to begin a weekend of Bristol-based literary events celebrating women’s writing and history.

Biographies

Eleanor Pender has chaired events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the Young Adult Literature Convention (YALC) and the Bath Children’s Literature Festival, interviewing Patrick Ness, Cecilia Ahern, Teri Terry and many more. Eleanor had her first young adult short story published in 2015 and is currently working on a young adult novel.

Janne Teller is a critically acclaimed and best-selling Danish novelist and essayist of Austrian-German family background. She has received numerous literary grants and awards, including the prestigious American Michael L. Printz Honor Award for literary excellence and the Danish Drassow’s Literary Peace Prize.

Karolina Ramqvist is one of the most influential writers and feminists of her generation in Sweden. She has written five novels and is widely celebrated for her powerful explorations of contemporary issues such as sexuality, commercialisation, isolation and belonging. In 2015, Karolina was awarded the prestigious P.O. Enquist Literary Prize for The White City (Denvitastaden), and for her ‘unique and strong position in Swedish literature’.

Malaika Kegode is a poet, promoter and workshop facilitator based in Bristol. She has performed around the UK at a number of celebrated venues, festivals and poetry events, such as Tongue Fu, Out-Spoken at The 100 Club, WOMAD, Boomtown Festival and BBC at the Edinburgh Festival. She was shortlisted for the Out-Spoken Poetry Award 2019 and has acted as tour support for Saul Williams at The Fleece.

Co- Founder of Kiota Bristol, Shagufta K Iqbal was longlisted for the 2017/2018 Jerwood Compton poetry fellowship. She is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, workshop facilitator and Tedx Speaker.

Rebecca Kosick co-directs the Bristol Poetry Institute and founded the Indisciplinary Poetics Research Cluster at the University of Bristol. She is the author of Material Poetics in Hemispheric America: Words and Objects, 1950-2010 (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming 2020) and her first collection of poetry, Labor Day, will be published in the US this spring.

Bristol Women’s Literature Festival is supported by Arts Council England and Bristol Festival of Ideas.