Industry Insider – Poetry awards and competitions

Join us for a panel discussion with Lucy Macnab (Chair); with Moniza Alvi, Jack Underwood and Malika Booker 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.

Programme

• Welcome, introductions and housekeeping from Lucy Macnab (3 mins)
• Panel discussion with Moniza Alvi, Jack Underwood, Malika Booker (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.

Find out more here

The Line-up

Moniza Alvi

Moniza Alvi was born in Lahore to an English mother and a Pakistani father. She grew up in Hertfordshire. Her first collection The Country at My Shoulder (Oxford University Press, 1993) was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and the Whitbread poetry prizes. Europa (Bloodaxe, 2008) and At the Time of Partition  (Bloodaxe, 2013) were also shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Fairoz is published this spring. Moniza now lives in Norfolk where she has completed a PhD at UEA on the poetry of Stevie Smith. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Website: https://moniza.uk/

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/

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.