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Industry Insider – Poetry awards and competitions
27 March @ 11:00 - 12:30 GMT
Join us for a panel discussion with Lucy Macnab (Chair); with Jack Underwood, Malika Booker and Eric Ngalle Charles who will be discussing poetry and spoken word competitions and awards.
This event is in conjunction with our Poetry and Spoken Word Group (PSWG) and takes place after the PSWG AGM taking place from 10.00. Book here or find out more.
#SoAatHome Industry Insider events – free for all + donation
As of Feb 2025, our #SoAatHome industry insider events will be free for all but with a donation option when registering for the event.
All donations made go towards the Society of Authors’ Access Fund. The fund is to help provide authors support for travel, subsistence, childcare or access needs for events, residencies, and retreats. If you would like to make a donation with your booking, please do so when registering for the event below.
Accordion Content
Access 20% off your first year of membership of the SoA with discount code SOAATHOME20
The Society of Authors is the UK’s biggest trade union for authors – representing more than 12,000 writers, illustrators, translators and other creative practitioners.
Our standard subscription rate is just £32.50 per quarter (£22.75 for students).
As an SoA member, you’ll get:
- Access to all our #SoAatHome events for free including the Professional Development sessions usually charged at £35 from Feb 2025
- Access to all our Feel Good Friday and Industry Insider events which are usually charged £5 from Feb 2025
- Access all #SoAatHome Vimeo professional development recordings so you can catch up in your own time
- Access Unlimited one-to-one professional advice
- Membership of our online and real-world professional networks and special interest groups
- A range of member-only discounts, including books, insurance and travel
- And much more
‘It was a surprisingly lovely way to meet fellow writers in a friendly, warm surrounding perfectly hosted by the SoA staff. Thank you for all the introductions, the welcome and the nourishment!’ – attendee from SoA in Person: Autumn New Members’ Party 2024
JOIN NOW | PRICING
Programme
- Welcome, introductions and housekeeping from Lucy Macnab (3 mins)
- Panel discussion with Jack Underwood, Malika Booker and Eric Ngalle Charles (60 mins)
- Comfort Break (5 mins)
- Q&A with audience (20 mins)
- Summary and closing comments (2 mins)
- This event will be moderated by Tilly Zeeman – Publishing Contracts Advisor &Poetry and Spoken Word Group coordinator, SoA
Who is this session for?
Poets, spoken word artists and other authors interested in poetry awards and competitions. Writers at all stages of their careers are welcome.
What will this session cover?
- Different kinds of poetry awards and competitions
- Tips for effective submissions
- What it’s like to judge an award or competition
About the Poetry and Spoken Word Group (PSWG)
The SoA Poetry and Spoken Word Group (PSWG) page is a professional community for poets and spoken word artists. We come together to discuss issues affecting poets and the spoken word community, offer advice and support, and raise the profile of poetry and performance.
The Line-up
Malika Booker
Malika Booker is a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage, lectures at Manchester Metropolitan University, and co-founded Malika’s Poetry Kitchen ( a writer’s collective). The Anthology – Two Young, Two Black, Too Different, Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen celebrates Malika Poetry Kitchen’s twenty-year anniversary. Her pamphlet Breadfruit received a Poetry Society recommendation, and her poetry collection Pepper Seed was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize for first full collection. She is published with the Poets Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire in The Penguin Modern Poet Series 3: Your Family: Your Body (2017). A Cave Canem Fellow, Complete Works Fellow and inaugural Poet in Residence at The Royal Shakespeare Company, Malika was awarded the Cholmondeley Award (2019) for outstanding contribution to poetry and elected a Royal Society of Literature Fellow (2022). She is the first woman to win the Forward Prize for Best Single poem twice: The Little Miracles (2020) and Libation (2023).
Instagram: @malika.booker
Lucy Macnab
Lucy is Co-Executive Director at Forward, the charity behind National Poetry Day and the Forward Prizes. She has been a teacher, entrepreneur, producer and policy maker, mainly working with writers. Previously she was Director of the Ministry of Stories, which she co-founded in 2010 with Nick Hornby and Ben Payne.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/lucymacnab
Jack Underwood
Jack Underwood is author of two poetry collections Happiness (Faber, 2015), and A Year in the New Life (Faber, 2021) and the non-fiction work, NOT EVEN THIS (Corsair, 2021). He co-presents and curates the Faber Poetry Podcast and is senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College.
Website: www.gold.ac.uk/ecw/staff/j-underwood/
Eric Ngalle Charles
Eric Ngalle Charles is a Cameroonian writer, poet and playwright, and human rights activist based in Wales. A Ph.D. researcher at King’s College London, he was awarded a Creative Wales Award Fellowship in 2017 for his work on the topics of migration, trauma, and memory. His autobiography I, Eric Ngalle: One Man’s Journey Crossing Continents from Africa to Europe (2019) was published by Parthian Books, and recounts his journey to Europe, spending several years in Russia and elsewhere seeking refuge. He was selected as one of Jackie Kay’s best British BAME writers with a unique theatrical voice. He sits on boards at Literature Wales and Aberystwyth Arts Centre and edited Hiraeth Erzolirzoli: A Wales-Cameroon Anthology (2018). The 3 Molas (2020), an anthology about Cameroon and Wales. His poetry Collection Homelands Seren Books (2022) was published in April.
X: @yomadene | Instagram: @ericngallecharles
Send us your questions
If you would like to send questions in advance, email Mathilde Zeeman on MZeeman@societyofauthors.org with ‘Poetry awards and competitions’ in the subject header. We will prioritise questions sent in advance but will endeavour to answer as many as we can from the audience on the day.
#SoAatHome Fundraising Bookshop
Browse our virtual Bookshop.org store featuring books by authors and speakers taking part in the #SoAatHome. When you make a purchase using our affiliate links, a percentage will go to the Society of Authors’ Access Fund, giving authors support for travel, subsistence, childcare or access needs for events, residencies, and retreats.
Need to know
Accessibility
- Attendees will have the option to turn on the live transcript, to watch with subtitles.
- If you require BSL interpretation for this event, please email events@societyofauthors.org
Before the event
- Once registered, you will be sent a confirmation email with the Zoom link
- If the confirmation email doesn’t arrive in your inbox, please check your junk/spam email folder
- Please add events@societyofauthors.org to your Safe Senders list so you receive our confirmation and reminder emails
During the event
- This online event will take place on Zoom Webinar. You will not be on screen.
- This event is 90 minutes
After the event
- Hashtag for this event: #SoAatHome
- Attendees will be able to catch the recording on our Vimeo channel
Booking
Please either use the form titled ‘Register – no donation’ or the option of the different ticket options with a donation amount depending on how much you would like to donate towards the Society of Authors Access Fund.
Accordion Content
Access 20% off your first year of membership of the SoA with discount code SOAATHOME20
The Society of Authors is the UK’s biggest trade union for authors – representing more than 12,000 writers, illustrators, translators and other creative practitioners.
Our standard subscription rate is just £32.50 per quarter (£22.75 for students).
As an SoA member, you’ll get:
- Access to all our #SoAatHome events for free including the Professional Development sessions usually charged at £35 from Feb 2025
- Access to all our Feel Good Friday and Industry Insider events which are usually charged £5 from Feb 2025
- Access all #SoAatHome Vimeo professional development recordings so you can catch up in your own time
- Access Unlimited one-to-one professional advice
- Membership of our online and real-world professional networks and special interest groups
- A range of member-only discounts, including books, insurance and travel
- And much more
‘It was a surprisingly lovely way to meet fellow writers in a friendly, warm surrounding perfectly hosted by the SoA staff. Thank you for all the introductions, the welcome and the nourishment!’ – attendee from SoA in Person: Autumn New Members’ Party 2024
JOIN NOW | PRICING
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Giving authors support for travel, subsistence, childcare or access needs for events, residencies, and retreats
Every contribution helps us ensure that these needs and costs aren’t barriers to authors wishing to access events.
If you are in a position to help, please donate via the link below. If you are an author facing access issues, please click here to see if we can help.
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