Bryony Kimmings

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Inspired by the taboos, stigmas, anomalies, and social injustices around her, Bryony Kimmings creates mind-blowing, multi-platform art works to provoke change. Her work centres around outlandish 'social experiments' that Kimmings conducts with genuine genius, intrigue, and wholehearted fearless gusto. As an artist, she sets her sights on the impossible and unconquerable and turns the unspeakable into the year’s hottest topic. Previous works have seen the artist retracing an STI to its source, spending 7 days in a controlled environment in a constant state of intoxication and becoming a pop star invented by a 9-year-old. Bryony’s award-winning work has toured across the world, including Perth Festival, Sydney Opera House, Arts Centre Melbourne, Brisbane Powerhouse (Australia), HOME Manchester, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Battersea Arts Centre's Grandhall (UK), Antifest (Finland), Culturgest (Portugal), Fusebox Festival (Texas), The Southbank Centre, Melbourne International Comedy Festival (Australia) and Lisinski Operahouse (Croatia). Kimmings also mentors artists, writes musicals, teaches workshops, writes films, speaks on panels and is sometimes on the telly.

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Courtney Conrad

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Courtney Conrad is a Jamaican poet. She is an Eric Gregory Award winner and a Bridport Prize Young Writers Award recipient. She was shortlisted for The White Review Poet's Prize, Manchester Poetry Prize, Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, Mslexia’s Women’s Poetry Prize, Aesthetica Creative Writing Award’s Poetry Prize and the Poetry Wales Pamphlet competition. She has been longlisted for the National Poetry Competition, Rebecca Swift Women Poets’ Prize and The Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition.  She is an alumna of The London Library Emerging Writers Programme, Malika's Poetry Kitchen, Barbican Young Poets, Obsidian Foundation Retreat, Griots Well Collective and Roundhouse Poetry Collective. Her poems have appeared in Magma Poetry, Poetry Wales, The White Review, Stand Magazine, Poetry Review, Bath Magg, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Anthropocene Poetry Journal and The Adriatic Magazine. Her work has been anthologised by Anamot Press, Bridport Prize, Re.creation, Peekash Press, Bad Betty Press and Flipped Eye Press. She has performed at Glastonbury Festival, Brainchild Festival and UKYA City Takeover. She has also been commissioned by the Museum of London, Guildhall, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate Britain, The African Centre, BBC 1Xtra and Spread the Word.

Sara Shaarawi

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Sara Shaarawi is a playwright, translator, producer and performer from Cairo, who is based in Glasgow. In 2021, NIQABI NINJA was produced as part of Edinburgh International Festival (Independent Arts Projects/Lyceum and national tour); the play, which explores themes of sexual violence against women, has been performed in Cape Town, South Africa and Kampala, Uganda and been published as part of Contemporary Plays by African Women (Methuen). SISTER RADIO was co-produced by Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Stellar Quines at Pitlochry in Aug/Sept 2022. In 2015, Sara was invited to take part in the Playwrights’ Studio Scotland’s Mentoring Programme and in 2017 she won their New Playwright’s Award. She is an alumnus of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Break Through Writers programme, where she developed LELAH, and took part in their Starter Programme doing research and development on SPITHOOD, a new play exploring police brutality and racism in Scotland. She is currently under commission to National Theatre of Scotland for her full-length play SPITHOOD.

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