Stories of Empire

BOOKING LINK VIA EVENTBRITE

Gita Ralleigh will lead a reading and discussion with award winning writer Sita Brahmachari and poet and educator Laila Sumpton. Aimed at writers, parents, educators, librarians, publishing professionals and booksellers.
Discussion points include:
Why are stories of Empire so vital to young readers now? How do you approach historical research and the archives? What is the role of the writer’s imagination in bringing these stories to life?
Sita Brahmachari
Sita Brahmachari’s creative projects with diverse communities are at the heart of her writing. She has a BA in English Literature and an MA in Arts Education (Central School of Speech and Drama). She has been Writer in Residence for The Book Trust and Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants. Amnesty International has endorsed her work as upholding the rights of children and families, and she is an Amnesty Ambassador. Sita has worked in theatre, creating education and new writing projects for The Royal Court, Talawa Theatre Company, Tamasha and The Royal Shakespeare Company. She co-created a play inspired by Shaun Tan’s novel The Arrival for Tamasha Theatre Company. Her debut novel for young people, ‘Artichoke Hearts’, won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, 2011. Subsequent novels include ‘Jasmine Skies’, ‘Tender Earth’, ‘Red Leaves’, ‘Kite Spirit’ and ‘When Secrets Set Sail’. Her most recent book is ‘When Shadows Fall’, shortlisted for the Yoto Carnegie medal.
Laila Sumpton
Laila Sumpton is a poet, editor, performer and educator who works with schools, hospitals, museums, galleries and charities on a wide variety of poetry projects. She co-founded Poetry Vs Colonialism – where poets work with museums, academics and schools to explore the British empire and its legacy. She was recently the Keats House Poet in residence and has co-edited ‘Where We Find Ourselves,’ an anthology from Global Majority writers published by Arachne Press. Laila has been commissioned by Tate Modern, the Tower of London and the Royal Free Hospital amongst others and published in numerous anthologies and magazines including Ambit and Modern Poetry in Translation.
Gita Ralleigh
Gita Ralleigh is a poet, writer and doctor born to Indian immigrant parents in London. She has been published by Wasafiri, Bellevue Literary Review, Magma Poetry and The Rialto among others. She teaches creative writing to science undergraduates at Imperial College and has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck and an MSc in Medical Humanities. Her poetry debut was ‘A Terrible Thing’ (Bad Betty Press, 2020) and her recent pamphlet is ‘Siren’ (Broken Sleep Books, 2022). She is a London Library Emerging Writer for 2022-2023, a member of the Kinara poetry collective and a trustee at Spread The Word. Her debut children’s novel ‘The Destiny of Minou Moonshine’ is published in July 2023. You can find her on Twitter as @storyvilled and on Instagram as @gita_ralleigh