Booktober: Emerging Writers & Pitch It

DESIblitz Literature Festival is coming to The Exchange with a new writers showcase for Booktober.

The DESIblitz Literature Festival, the UK’s leading South Asian Literature Festival, highlights new writers and offers a platform to showcase their work. At this special event, discover emerging talent in fiction, poetry, and screenwriting.

Following the showcase, gain valuable insights from publishers and learn essential tips on how to prepare and pitch your work effectively. 

Writers

Bilal Akram is a fiction writer, poet, screenwriter, and spoken word artist from Birmingham who is currently writing his debut crime novel, Profiles of The Dead. He has recently completed an MA in Creative Writing, graduating with distinction, and runs a weekly newsletter inspiring writers and creatives to pursue and master their craft.

Hamish Morjaria is the author of The Curse of Muziris, a historical thriller set in both first century and present day India and Rome. It will be released by Pan Macmillan in September 2024. It is the first in a series of books featuring the intrepid Indian archaeologist, Dr Harveen Gill. 

James Trevelyan is a writer, editor and Director of The Emma Press, a Birmingham-based independent publisher specialising in poetry, short fiction, essays and children’s books. He has previously worked advising writers on funding at Arts Council England and taught a ‘Being a Writer’ module on the Creative Writing MA at University of Westminster.  

Muhammad Idrish is a writer presenting his latest work, The Making of Bangladesh as I saw It.  He came to prominence in England when he successfully fought off an attempt by the government in the early 1980s to deport him. The Muhammad Idrish Must Stay Anti Deportation campaign, spearheaded by the British trade union NALGO (now UNISON) and supported by the wider Labour movement, challenged the institutional racism embedded in British immigration laws. After winning his campaign, Idrish continued to work as the coordinator of the black civil rights organisation, the Birmingham Asian Resource Centre. Over the years, he has organised and actively participated in numerous other anti racist and anti deportation campaigns across the United Kingdom. He writes in Bangla and in English on current social and political issues and has a particular interest in the history of the Indian subcontinent.

Nadeem Ahmed is a successful music composer, radio and tv presenter with a popular following on Instagram. He has now turned his creative talents to writing fiction, creating work for both adults and children. If, after all of that,  he has any spare time, his other interests are travel, food, and egyptology.

Rukshana Horwood showcases her first novel Life on a Postcard. Having completed a Psychology degree Rukshana had a passion for travel and writing. She worked for an airline for 25 years and combined her two passions by travelling and writing about her travels. She has delivered a baby at 35,000 feet, trained challenging pilots and coached frustrated CEOs but says all of that combined does not compare to the challenge of bring up her daughter.

This event is presented in partnership with DESIblitz Literature Festival as part of Booktober at The Exchange. Running throughout October 2024, the programme celebrates the joy of creative writing and reading in all its forms and will be bursting with activities, events and opportunities to explore the magic of literature.