WRITERS
Nottingham-based Writer, Oral Storyteller and Performer
Polys Loizou-Denyer
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.
Contact Details: polisloizou@gmail.com
London-based Author
Alexander Paul Christofi
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.
Email: alexchristofi@outlook.com