That’s What She Said: featuring Lucy English & Hanan Issa

That’s What She Said, Bristol returns for its third outing with a fantastic line up featuring Lucy English, Hanan Issa, Durre Shahwar, and Josie Alford, plus an open mic.

Hosted by Burning Eye Books’, Bridget Hart, the events aims to present “the best new writing and performance by women, featuring iconic and emerging authors with a mix of performance, poetry, storytelling, slam and more.”

Lucy English is a spoken word poet and novelist. She has toured widely in the UK and the US. With the South West Collective she co-wrote Flash , a multimedia spoken word show, which toured the UK in 2010–11, and also Count Me In , which toured from 2014–15. She ran a series of performances and workshops in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Taiwan for the British Council’s Animating Literature Programme.

She is the co-organiser of the Mix Digital conferences at Bath Spa University and of Liberated Words, which curates, screens and creates poetry films. She is also Reader in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Her first collection of poetry, Prayer to Imperfection, and her second collection The Book of Hours was published earlier this year. Both collections are published by Bristol-based Burning Eye Books

Hanan Issa is a mixed-race poet from Wales. She has performed at numerous events across the UK and had her work featured on both ITV Wales and BBC Radio Wales. Her work has been published in Banat Collective, Hedgehog Press, Sukoon mag, Lumin, sister-hood magazine and MuslimGirl.com. Her winning monologue was featured at Bush Theatre’s Hijabi Monologues. She is the co-founder of Cardiff’s first BAME open mic series ‘Where I’m Coming From’. She is also one of the 2018 Hay Festival Writers at Work. Her debut poetry pamphlet will be published by Burning Eye Books in October 2019.

Durre Shahwar is a writer, an Associate Editor for Wales Arts Review, and the co-founder of Where I’m Coming From, an open mic that promotes BAME writing in Wales. She is also part of the Hay Writers at Work scheme. Durre’s work has been published in various magazines and anthologies including Know Your Place: Essays on the Working Class (Dead Ink Books),and We Shall Fight Until We Win (404 Ink). She is a regular performer and speaker at events and festivals and has worked with various national organisations. Durre is currently doing her PhD in Creative Writing at Cardiff University.

Josie Alford is a Bristol-based poet and event host. She is part of the Hammer and Tongue Bristol family. Her poetry fuses the techniques of spoken and written poetry. Having just completed an MA in Creative Writing, she is currently working on publishing a poetry collection about the death of her father.

Those interested in the open mic should email to book a slot

£5adv (£3 if student or unwaged – ID required on entry) – OTD £7 (£5 student or unwaged)