The UK’s Brighton & Hove’s festival of LGBTQ+ writing returns on 9 October for four days of lively and insightful conversations, panels, workshops, performances and films, celebrating some of our best and brightest LGBTQ+ writers at Brighton’s Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts.
Now in its seventh year, The Coast is Queer creates a space for queer readers, writers and allies to come together in a grassroots celebration of the written word and its ability to illuminate and enrich the life of our community. This year will be bigger and better than ever, with new spaces opening and a vibrant Queer Heritage Hub at the University of Sussex Library.
The line-up for 2025 includes an unforgettable opening event on Thursday 9 October with ruckus! Federation’s co-founder and Sussex alumni, Topher Campbell, in association with Black at Sussex.
On Friday 10 October, It Ain’t Over Until the Bisexual Speaks with Vaneet Mehta, Lois Shearing and Sam Mills, chaired by Hafsa Qureshi will explore the intersectional complexities and common erasure of bisexuality; while From Page to Stage with Coral Wylie, Debbie Hannan and Tabby Lamb, chaired by Dorothy Max Prior bring queer stories to the stage. Students from Brighton and Sussex Universities have curated two panel events: Graphic Sexuality – The Novel Art of Being Queer which will delve into the world of queer zines, comics and graphic novels and Re:Search – Ways of Finding Queer History reflecting on the novel ways modern researchers are bringing queer history out of the closet and into the light.
Friday also sees the launch of the Festival’s publishing and industry offering featuring panels with publishers, agents, authors and publicists covering topics such as Getting an Agent with some of the UK’s top queer agents, Building a Queer List in a Straight Industry with commissioning editors from independent presses to Big 5 publishers, and Getting Your Work Out There with publicists and writers who have taken traditionally and self-publishing routes. The day will be rounded off in style by An Evening with Joelle Taylor and Friends, where Joelle will be bringing two extraordinary poets to the stage as well as performing from her electrifying debut collection THE NIGHT ALPHABET.
Workshops and alternative events on Friday cover: Life Writing and Memoir with Topher Campbell and a Queer Girls Book. Club collaboration with debut novelist Christina Fonthes. Saturday is jam-packed with panels, and workshops including This Queer Arab Family with Elias Jahshan, celebrating the launch of his landmark anthology of the same name. Do you Believe in Life After Loss with Andrew Flewitt, Luciana Cousins and Juno Roche will explore queer perspectives and experiences of loss in all its forms from identity to love to religion;
What Can We Do About It? With Lucy Webster, Ian Henzel, Hafsa Qureshi and , chaired by Ellen Jones, will platform a grounded, energising conversation about how the world will get better –and how we can all help make it happen; Truth and Daring – an exploration of queer memoir and life writing with Roxy Bourdillon and Jeremy Atherton Lin, chaired by Sam Solomon will ask questions about the process and ethical implications of getting life writing ‘right’; our crime fiction panel Not That Innocent with DG Coutinho, Jack Jordan, Piotr Cieplak and Lesley Thomson, chaired by Ayse Huseyin
will be a vibrant event bringing often suppressed queer voices into the commercial space; Horrifyingly Queer with Heather Parry, Natalia Theodoridou, Onjuli Datta and Mikaella Clements, chaired by Chloe Michelle Howarth will explore why queer folk are drawn to writing horror; and Black History: Reclaiming and Retelling with Paula Akpan, Jacob V Joyce and Coral Wylie, chaired by Sue Lemos will be a vital conversation about memory, resistance, and the power of telling our own stories.
The Festival will also see an exciting In Conversation with Women’s Prize for Fiction winner Yael van der Wouden and Vedrana Velickovic, and the evening will be rounded off with Juno Dawson’s Lovely Trans Literary Salon with Munroe Bergdorf as well as our annual Open Mic Night hosted by the wonderful Brighton-based AFLO. the poet.
Workshops and alternative events on Saturday cover: Developing Your Non-fiction Workshop with Paula Akpan and Abi Fellows, a Zine Making Session with Jacob V Joyce and Fun With Form with Travis Alabanza.
Sunday of the Festival will open with a screening of 3000 Lesbians Go to York, a documentary following the thousands of women who attended the Libertas! and York Lesbian Art Festivals in the early 2000s, followed by a Q&A with the film’s producer and published author Jane Traies as well as the film’s director and editor. We’re also hosting A Morning with Damian Barr and Curtis Garner to celebrate the release of Barr’s highly anticipated new book THE TWO ROBERTS; followed by a dynamic, intersectional panel asking Is a shared history possible? with Kit Heyam, Paula Akpan, and Jane Traies, chaired by Sussex academic Dr Nat Arias. Lois Weaver is back to host a free Care Cafe, and the publishers of Letters To My Little Trans Self will be hosting a panel with contributors Juno Roche, Ebony Rose Dark, Luc Grey and Travis Alabanza which will include readings from the book as well as a lively conversation. The Festival will finish with an In Conversation between two of our greatest living writers, Ali Smith and Jackie Kay.
Alternative events on Sunday cover: Serge Nicholson and Libro Levi Bridgeman hosting a Letters to My Younger Trans Self workshop and an intergenerational reading group sponsored by University of Brighton AHRC IGNITE programme.
Lesley Wood, CEO of New Writing South said:‘The Coast is Queer returns to Brighton in 2025 – a defiant, joyful, energising antidote to the constant conflict and noise of our times. It is a transient moment of communitas, of shared humanity and solidarity, needed now as much as any time in our turbulent queer history. We warmly invite you to join us as we explore the infinite ways queer writers feed our imagination and open our minds.
| 9th – 12th October
Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts |
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