WRITERS

As well as working as Editorial Director at Transworld Publishers, I write occasional essays, reviews and other short pieces, which have been published in the Guardian, New Humanist, Prospect, The White Review, The Brixton Review of Books and The London Magazine.

My books are published in twelve languages. I have published two novels, Glass and Let Us Be True. The former was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Betty Trask Prize. My first non-fiction book, Dostoevsky in Love, an intimate biography of the writer and his relationships, was selected as a Times and Sunday Times literary non-fiction book of the year and shortlisted for the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize. Cypria: A journey to the heart of the Mediterranean was published by Bloomsbury in May 2024. 

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Contact details: alexchristofi@outlook.com

Kleopatra Olympiou is a writer, editor, and translator from Nicosia, Cyprus. Her writing has been published in Tiny Molecules, Flash Flood, Raw Lit, Maudlin House, and elsewhere. Her flash fiction has been longlisted for the 29th Bath Flash Fiction Award and nominated for the 2026 Best of the Net anthology. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Durham University. 

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Contact details: writer.kleopatraolympiou@gmail.com 

I am a British-Cypriot writer and company director with a deep personal connection to Cyprus’s cultural heritage. As a great-great-grandniece of Vasilis Michaelides, the national poet of Cyprus, I felt a strong calling to honour his legacy through a deeply researched historical novel.  Over the course of ten years — while raising a family and managing our construction business — I dedicated myself to writing this book, blending fictional narrative with historical fact. My aim was to introduce Michaelides’ powerful story to an English-speaking audience and preserve his legacy for future generations. This project was a personal labour of love and a heartfelt tribute to both my ancestry and Cyprus’s literary history.  I was honoured to be invited to apply to the Cypriot Artists Database and welcome the opportunity to share this work within a community dedicated to preserving and promoting Cypriot culture.

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Contact details: sheadlisa7@gmail.com 

I’m an award-winning Cypriot writer and performer, working across various disciplines. I tend to draw on history, social politics, folklore and ‘queerness’ in all its forms.

My debut novel, 'Disbanded Kingdom', was published in 2018 and long-listed for the Polari First Book Prize. 'The Way It Breaks' is set in my motherland of Cyprus, as is 'A Good Year', a historical novella inspired by local horror folklore.

I’m also one third of the award-winning fringe theatre troupe The Off-Off-Off-Broadway Company, and a teller of folk tales from around the world.

Having recently forayed into the world of poetry via Nottingham’s GOBS Collective, I’m looking to make work that combines my different practices. This has most recently manifested in the Arts Council-funded 'I Was A Teenage Bisexual', a one-man horror B movie for the stage that’s a hybrid of theatrical monologue, storytelling, poetry and multimedia. 

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Contact Details: polisloizou@gmail.com 

Born in London to Greek Cypriot parents, Soulla Christodoulou was the first in her family to go to university and later retrained to become a teacher. She has been writing since 2015.

 

She has six published novels: Broken Pieces of Tomorrow, The Summer Will Come, Alexander and Maria, The Village House, A Palette of Magpies, The Magic of Miramare and Alexander and Maria which was nominated for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2021.

 

The Summer Will Come, a book club read in the Year of Learning Festival 2019, London Borough of Barnet Libraries, has been translated into Greek and is currently being queried with Greek and Greek Cypriot publishers.

 

Soulla manages a portfolio career where she offers editing, proofreading and literary agency services to emerging and established writers both within the Uk and abroad. She recently completed a Greek to English literary translation and enjoys supporting those in her Cypriot community to realise their dreams.

 

Soulla is currently working on her seventh novel: The Pastry Girl of Malta as well as working on her first non-fiction book about writing. She is happiest penning stories in her pretty garden Writing Room while drinking tea infused with cinnamon sticks and cloves.

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Contact details: soullaauthor@gmail.com 

Dr. Yiota Demetriou is a British-Cypriot artist, writer, and educator working at the intersection of performance, technology, and storytelling. With a PhD in Theatre and Performance, her practice explores digital culture, multisensory design, and oral history. In 2023, she was selected for The London Library Emerging Writers Programme to develop The Islands Within Me, a hybrid memoir exploring matrilineal heritage via her Cypriot grandmothers' diasporic narratives. Her portfolio includes Love Letters (2012-18), an interactive performance toured globally, including at the The Museum of Broken Relationships and Latitude Festival. In 2024, she contributed to Larnaca’s 2030 European Capital of Culture bid, inspiring a city-wide love letter initiative. Demetriou founded Cyprus' first live art platform (2012-14), which helped establish performance and live art as a recognised practice on the island. Yiota's experimental projects like What Gives Us Goosebumps? (supported by Arts Council England) incorporated neurotechnology into storytelling. Her acclaimed artist's book, To You, - a tactile and heat-sensitive meditation on intimacy and loss - has been endorsed by Communication Arts, featured at the Bodleian's Sensational Books exhibit, as well as on BBC Radio and in The Bookseller. Yiota's writing spans diverse forms—including literary nonfiction, technology essays, poetry, and academic articles—and crosses mediums from an artist's book, to interactive installations. Through this hybrid practice, she examines how storytelling bridges cultural heritage with innovation, particularly through intimacy, multisensory experiences, and participatory narratives. 

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Contact Details: yiota.a.demetriou@gmail.com