Spoke: New Queer Voices

by Adam Lowe (Editor), Leo Adams, Jamal Gerald

SPOKE: New Queer Voices brings together some of the very best young writers working today. United yet multiple, together but disparate, the writers herein encompass a range of genres and styles. Inside you’ll find essays, poems, plays, a song, a map and a comic. Themes include love, dance, drag, social justice, family and social media.

SPOKE puts the words and voices of a new generation of LGBT writers alongside each other to create a dialogue and to capture a turning point.

Collected here are many of the best entries to the Young Enigma Awards along with a selection of specially commissioned writers.

The writers here assembled include:

Jamal Gerald • Caleb Everett • Poet Brownie
James Hodgson • Ushiku Crisafulli • Rebecca Swarray
Jane Bradley • David Tait • Jackie Hagan • Mitch Kellaway
Jude Orlando Enjolras • Tara Ali Din • Andrew McMillan
Jamie Clayborough • Okechukwu Ndubisi • Markie Burnhope
Leo Adams • Maisy Moran • Lucy Middlemass • Blythe Cooper
Nathan L W Hughes • Nik Way • Sinead Cooper • Kat Day
Rei Haberberg • Imani Sims • Keith Jarrett • Barnaby Callaby
Bryony Bates • Janette Ayachi • Olivia Smith • Adam Lowe
Michael Atkins • Rylan Cavell

Young Enigma is a grassroots literature project which has been funded by Arts Council England, Commonword and Manchester Pride. The Young Enigma Awards include the Allan Horsfall Prize for LGBT young writers
from the North West of England, supported by Archives+ at Manchester Central Library; and the Barbara Burford Prize for LGBT emerging writers across the UK, supported by Commonword.

Genres: Poetry, LGBT, Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Adam Lowe (he/his, mostly) is a writer, performer and publisher from Leeds, UK, though he currently lives in Manchester. He is the UK's LGBT+ History Month Poet Laureate and was Yorkshire's Poet for 2012 . He writes poetry, plays and fiction, and he occasionally performs in drag as Beyonce Holes. He is of Kittitian, British and Irish descent. He graduated with both a BA and MA from the University of Leeds, and is currently researching for a PhD in creative writing at the University of Manchester.
Adam Lowe writes about disability, LGBT+ experiences, and the lives of mixed-race Black British communities. Carol Rumens of The Guardian describes him as a 'versatile and widely published young writer'.

With afshan d'souza lodhi, Adam founded and runs Young Enigma, a writer development project for young writers; is Editor-in-Chief of Vada Magazine and Dog Horn Publishing; and is Publicity Officer for Peepal Tree Press. He has performed around the world, at festivals and conferences, including the Black and Asian Writers Conference. He is an advocate for LGBT+ rights and sits on the management committee for Schools OUT UK, the charity that founded LGBT History Month in the UK. He is chair of Black Gold Arts, which supports artists who are queer, trans and intersex people of colour (QTIPOC) in Greater Manchester.

In 2013, he was announced as one of 10 Black and Asian 'advanced poets' for The Complete Works II (founded by Bernardine Evaristo) with Mona Arshi, Jay Bernard, Kayo Chingoni, Rishi Dastidar, Edward Doegar, Inua Ellams, Sarah Howe, Eileen Pun and Warsan Shire, which resulted in the anthology Ten: The New Wave, edited by Karen McCarthy-Woolf (Bloodaxe). He was mentored on the programme by Patience Agbabi. He also made the list of '20 under 40' writers in Leeds for the LS13 Awards, where Lowe was given as an example of 'the non-conformist and boundary-breaking approach to writing in Leeds'.

In 2022, Adam edited the anthology The World Reimagined, featuring 30 poets writing on the subject of the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans. Poets in the anthology included Benjamin Zephaniah, Keisha Thompson, Malika Booker, Dorothea Smartt, Nick Makoha, Tanya Shirley, Khadijah Ibrahiim, Shivanee Ramlochan and Shara McCallum.

Adam is also an alumnus of the Obsidian Foundation, and has taught for The Poetry School, PEN, the University of Leeds and the University of Central Lancashire.

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd have to rate this book a disappointment, there was only one author I wanted to read anything else by - but I think my lack of engagement may be due to my age - I would be a very old queer voice - but I very much like the use of queer rather than gay as I do not think the later term can really be used in the all encompassing way it was (maybe even in the past not totally justifiably) and in many places still often is. I would not want to stop anyone from giving this book a closer look - anthologies are very good at introducing new and different writing - but this one while giving a platform to many worthy voices is unlikely to survive or be remembered as a contribution to literature.