Events archive
The Coast is Queer
The Coast Is Queer, Brighton & Hove’s celebration of LGBTQ+ writing, returns for an in-person festival from 7-9 October 2022. Now in its third year, The Coast is Queer brings together writers, poets, performers, academics, activists and readers for three days of accessible, lively in-conversation events, workshops, films and discussions celebrating queer lives and literature.
This year, guest speakers include Sussex alumni Verity Spott (Gideon, Click Away Close Door Say, We Will Bury You) and Elizabeth Chakrabarty (Lessons in Love and Other Crimes), the Devil's Dyke Network Poets featuring a large number of Sussex alumni, Sussex faculty Dr Sara Jane Bailes and Helen Dixon. The festival will also host Sarah Winman (InWords Literary Award, Still Life), Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller (Bad Gays: A Homosexual History), and screenwriter and Sunday Times number 1 bestseller Juno Dawson (Her Majesty’s Royal Coven) will also be returning with another edition of her Lovely Trans Literary Salon, this time featuring award-winning writer, performer and theatre maker, Travis Alabanza (None of The Above).
Co-organised by Dr Samuel Solomon (Media, Arts and Humanities), festival events include:
Friday 7 October
11am-12.15pm - Panel: Queers In The Library, with Dr Alice Corble (University of Sussex Library)
12-1.30pm - Poetry Workshop: Verity Spott – Poetic Grief In Crisis
2.30-3.45pm - Panel: Stacy Makishi, Ursula Martinez, Oluwaseun Olayiwola : Mischief In The Making – Writing For Queer Performance
4-5.30pm - Workshop: A Queer Autobiographical Workshop For Trans, Non-Binary, Genderqueer And Queer Writers With Travis Alabanza
4.15-5.30pm Panel: Disrupting The Status Quo: Elias Jahshan, Golnoosh Nour And Maryam Din
5.45-6.45pm - In Conversation: Pajtim Statovci With Vedrana Velickovic
7.30-8.45pm - Juno Dawson’s Lovely Trans Literary Salon With Travis Alabanza
Saturday 8 October
10.30am-12.30pm - Workshop: Cruising Nature With Declan Wiffen
12-1.30pm - Panel: Finding Home In The Queer Poem – Mary Jean Chan, Fran Lock, John Mccullough, Peter Scalpello, Verity Spott
12.15-1.30pm - Panel: New Voices With Tice Cin, Elizabeth Chakrabarty And Jon Ransom With Okechukwu Nzelu
2-3.15pm - In Conversation: Neil Bartlett And Okechukwu Nzelu
3.45-5pm - Panel: Queer In Time And Queering Space With Clare Summerskill And Adam Nathaniel Furman & Joshua Mardell
5.30-6.45pm - In Conversation: Bad Gays
7-10pm. Saturday Night Out With Dj Ritu, Livia Kojo Alour, Charlie Wood And Devil’s Dykes Network Poets
Sunday 9 October
12.15-1.30pm - Panel: Speculative Fiction With Julia Armfield, Leone Ross, Helen Trevorrow, And Shola Von Reinhold
2-3.15pm - In Conversation: Michael Cashman With Pete Lawson
2.30-3.15pm - Waterloo Press Book Launch – Small Odysseys By Maria Jastrzębska
3.45-5pm In Conversation: Sarah Winman And Beatrice Hitchman
View the full festival programme and book tickets, available on a Pay What You Can basis, at https://coastisqueer.com/