ONLINE: Polari LGBTQ+ Literary Salon

Bestselling author Paul Burston (The Black Path, The Closer I Get) hosts the acclaimed LGBTQ+ literary salon Polari, with guest authors Okechukwu Nzelu (The Private Joys of Nnenna Meloney, Here Again Now) and Diana Souhami, who won the 2021 Polari Prize with her historical biography No Modernism Without Lesbians.

Paul Burston is the author of six novels and four non-fiction books and editor of two short story collections. Paul is curator and host of award-winning LGBTQ+ literary salon Polari and founder of The Polari Prize for emerging and established LGBTQ+ writers, he is also a regular contributor to TV and radio. His first crime novel The Black Path (2016) became a Number 1 bestseller at WH Smith. The Gay Divorcee (2009) was optioned for TV. Lovers & Losers (2007) was shortlisted for a Stonewall Award. His debut novel Shameless (2001) was shortlisted for the State of Britain Award. His memoir We Can Be Heroes will be published in 2023.

Okechukwu Nzelu is a Manchester-based writer. In 2015 he was the recipient of a Northern Writers’ Award from New Writing North. His debut novel, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney won a Betty Trask Award; it was also shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Polari First Book Prize, and longlisted for the Portico Prize. In 2021, it was selected for the Kingston University Big Read. His second novel, Here Again Now, will be published in March 2022. He is a regular contributor to Kinfolk magazine, and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Lancaster University.

Diana Souhami won the 2021 Polari prize for LGBTQ+ books with No Modernism Without Lesbians, a richly researched and hugely enjoyable account of a group of gay women who helped to begin the modernist movement. She won several other awards, including the US Lambda Literary Award (twice) and the Whitbread biography award for Selkirk’s Island. Two of her books, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall and Coconut Chaos, have been broadcast as BBC R4’s Book of the Week. Her first book: Gluck: Her Biography, was recently the basis for a BBC documentary and exhibition at Brighton Art Gallery.

This event is ONLINE, you will receive a Zoom link the day before the event.

While this event is FREE booking is required so we can send you the Zoom link.

For more information visit https://www.huddlitfest.org.uk/event/polari/