Polari Literary Salon

Paul Burston is curator and host of award-winning LGBTQ+ literary salon Polari and founder of the Polari Prize book awards for LGBTQ+ writers, based at the British Library. In 2016, he featured in the British Council’s Global List of ’33 visionary people promoting freedom, equality and LGBT rights around the world’. Paul Burston is the author of six novels and five non-fiction books and the editor of two short-story collections. His memoir We Can Be Heroes: A Survivor’s Story (published by Little A) is a tale of living through two pandemics, surviving two near death experiences and battling his own demons.

Nikita Gill is a writer, artist and graphic designer. Author of Your Soul is a River, Wild Embers and Fierce Fairytales. She is a National Poetry Day ambassador and has published multiple anthologies with poetry based on retelling stories from folklore and mythology.

Juno studied Fine Art and Philosophy at Brighton, and English Literature at Sussex, and has written for a wide range of publications including features for Bitch magazine, Dazed, Vice, Broadly, Cosmopolitan, the i, The Independent, i-D, the Tate magazine and Refinery29. They are the author of four books: Queer Sex, Trans Power, Gender Explorers and their memoir, A Working-Class Family Ages Badly.

John McCullough lives in Hove. His third book of poems, Reckless Paper Birds, was published with Penned in the Margins and won the 2020 Hawthornden Prize for Literature as well as being shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. His latest collection, Panic Response, was published by Penned in the Margins in 2022 and was a Book of the Year in The Telegraph as well as being included in The Times’ list of Notable New Poetry Books of 2022.