Conversations with Writers

CivicLeicester is inviting and accepting poems and short fiction on the theme, Welcome to Britain . We welcome submissions exploring but not limited to: images, issues, histories, lives, and demands that are currently in play in Britain today daily life in Britain reparations for slave trading, the use of slave labour and for benefiting from the slavery system (the extended global system involving plantation labour and slave-produced commodities etc) issues that made the Black Lives Matter movement relevant to Britain, the current state of the movement and its possible futures responses that engage with, contest and subvert the myths Britain tells about itself responses to British politicians' attitudes towards the use of nuclear weapons and their fixation with the idea of pushing 'the button' responses to Britain’s role in the current Ukraine-Russian War that go beyond, engage with or challenge the propaganda coming from both sides of the conflict responses to how Britain

CivicLeicester is inviting and accepting poems, short stories and creative nonfiction (including memoir, diary entries, chronicles, biographical and autobiographical accounts, letters and other narratives) on the theme, Africans in Ukraine . We welcome submissions exploring: the lived experience of being an African in Ukraine what brought Africans to Ukraine their lives in Ukraine before the current Ukraine-Russian War what happened when the war broke out experiences of and flight from the conflict the images, issues, histories, lives and demands that Africans in Ukraine are highlighting the reception Africans got in neighbouring countries or in their countries of origin, and what happens or what should happen next .  We welcome submissions from writers of all ages, based anywhere in the world.  We particularly welcome submissions from people of African descent who were living and studying in Ukraine and those who witnessed or are witnessing what this group of people are going through

Writers in the East and West Midlands regions of the UK are organising two online events around the new anthology,  Poetry and Settled Status for All   (CivicLeicester, 2022) :  ●  Poems for a Changing World  which is taking place online on Thursday, 17 February 2022 (7-8.30pm, UK time), and  ●  Poems about Migration , on Friday, 25 February (7.30-8.30pm, UK time). Both events are free and open to all.  As part of the events, a number of writers will be reading and talking about their work featured in the anthology. Also speaking at the events are representatives from Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Refugee Forum (17 February) and Shropshire Supports Refugees (25 February). Introduced by Claudia Webbe, Member of Parliament for Leicester East,  Poetry and Settled Status for All  presents 114 poems and short prose pieces from 97 writers from around the world exploring themes that include lived experience of migration, refugee and undocumented migrant experiences, and the hostile environme