Eppnoggia Mutetwa (stage name Mystique) is an intersectional feminist, scholar, published author, poet and human rights and mental health activist. Their work speaks to various social ills, with focus on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and sometimes politics. Their writings are meant to push people and spark conversations on topics that are usually silenced in mainstream media. Eppnoggia believes writing and spoken word provide much needed platforms for people to express themselves and talk about issues close to their heart. 

Nora Corcoran is a Traveller author who writes children’s books based on Traveller and nomadic culture. A mature student graduate of Trinity College Dublin, she is an activist for Traveller human rights and a speaker on Traveller culture and heritage. Nora works to promote understanding, pride and inclusion through education and storytelling.

Simon Lewis was the winner of the Hennessey Emerging Poetry Prize and was runner-up in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2015. He also featured in Poetry Ireland’s Introductions Series the same year. He has two poetry collections, Jewtown and Ah, Men!, both published by Doire Press.

Kimberly Reyes is a poet, essayist, teacher, pop culture critic and visual culture scholar. She is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections Bloodletting, vanishing point., and Running to Stand Still, and her book of essays, Life During Wartime, won the 2018 Michael Rubin Book Award. Her work has appeared widely in outlets including The Atlantic, The Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, ESPN The Magazine, Poetry Review and American Poets Magazine. A recent PhD graduate, Dr Reyes will join the Creative Writing faculty at the University of Miami in 2025.

Clara Kumagai is from Canada, Japan and Ireland. Her debut YA novel Catfish Rolling was nominated for the YOTO Carnegie Award, a finalist from the Great Reads Award and winner of the 2024 KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Book of the Year Award. Her second novel, Songs for Ghosts, was published in March 2025. She lives and writes in Ireland.  

Shannon Yee is an award-winning writer and producer. Her perspectives as an immigrant, ethnic minority, queer artist-parent with a disability living in Northern Ireland are deeply embedded in her work.

Shannon has received a number of awards, grants and commissions for her work. Most notably, her Reassembled, Slightly Askew uses binaural sonic arts technology to immerse audiences in her autobiographical experience of nearly dying and subsequent acquired brain injury. Reassembled has received numerous accolades and has toured internationally since 2015 (www.reassembled.co.uk) across Northern Ireland, England and Canada, as well as in Dublin, Hong Kong and New York City in medical training and arts festivals.

Shannon has been published by Doire Press (‘The Brightening Up Side’, Belfast Stories, 2019), Southward Press (‘Thumbnails’, Queer Love Anthology, 2020) and British Council Northern Ireland (‘Tectonic Plates and Pressure Cookers’, Britain and Ireland, Lives Entwined IV, 2019). She has been commissioned by BBC Radio 4, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC/The Space. Shannon was an Arts Council Northern Ireland Major Individual Artist (2017), Belfast City Council Creative Practitioner (2023/24) and was recently shortlisted for the 2025 international O’Shaughnessy Ventures International Fellowship ($100,000) for her current work integrating narrative, neuroscience and developmental psychology with parents and babies. Since 2023,

Shannon has mentored emerging global-majority-identified artists in Ireland in Dublin Fringe Festival’s innovative Weft Studio. She is also an LGBTQ+ activist; in 2005 she and her partner (Grainne Close) were the first public civil partnership in the UK. In 2017, they began legal action to bring same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland. See www.s-yee.co.uk

Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi is a poet, performer, editor, educator and arts facilitator based in Dublin. She was a commissioned poet on the Poetry as Commemoration project run by the Irish Poetry Reading Archive in UCD. In 2019, she was awarded the Access Cúirt bursary by Poetry Ireland and the Cúirt International Festival of Literature. Her poetry film was screened as part of the Words at Wilton Park programme and was selected as an official entry to the 2022 Bloomsday Film Festival. She was selected for the Screen Ireland 2021 X-Pollinator: ELEVATOR Programme to support the planning and development of her short film. Her short story was published in The Art of the Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories anthology, edited by Sinéad Gleeson, and was long-listed for the 2020 An Post Short Story of the Year Award. She co-edited Writing Home: The ‘New Irish’ Poets anthology (Dedalus Press, 2019). Her poetry has been published in The Stinging Fly Magazine, Winter Papers and Poetry International amongst others. She has been invited to share her work internationally, most recently at the 2024 Canadian – Irish Artists Symposium in Toronto and the 2024 Irish Arts & Writers Festival in San Francisco. She previously reviewed books on race, politics and history for The Irish Times. She is a recipient of a 2025 Dun Laoghaire Emerging Artists Bursary and 2025 Arts Council Agility Award.

Mahito Indi Henderson is a writer, actor and the editorial assistant for Legacy Lit, Hachette
Book Group. He is a graduate of Northwestern University (BA) and University College Cork (MA), where he was a recipient of the Government of Ireland International Education Scholarships (GOI-IES). His writing has been published in Holy Show, The Moth, The Echo, and The Foundationalist, among others. He is a recipient of two Arts Council Agility Awards and was a finalist for The Iowa Review Awards 2021. In 2022, he was awarded the inaugural Lacuna Bursary through the Irish Writers Centre and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre and is featured in Breaking Ground Ireland.

Based in Portlaoise, Ireland, Dagogo Hart is a dynamic poet, playwright and performer. Since his debut in Dublin in 2016, Dagogo has rapidly risen to prominence, securing notable achievements such as performing on the prestigious Tommy Tiernan Show Othervoices, writing and directing the critically acclaimed play Mmanwu at the Dublin Fringe Festival, and representing Ireland on a cultural tour in west Africa. His debut children’s book Lantern Smoke was released in 2025 to much acclaim and saw him picked by Children’s Books Ireland as one of the new voices of the year. A finalist in the All-Ireland Poetry Slam and a Slam Sunday grand slam winner, his work deeply explores themes of identity and cultural heritage, resonating with audiences both locally and internationally. Dagogo is also a founding member of WeAreGriot, a collective curating poetry and arts events, enhancing the cultural dialogue between diverse communities. His artistic contributions have been recognised in various publications and platforms, including RTE, Electric Picnic, Button Poetry and Poetry Ireland. Through his ongoing work, Dagogo Hart not only captures the spirit of contemporary poetry, but also pioneers new formats and collaborations that continue to push the boundaries of artistic expression.

Lind Grant-Oyeye is a poet of Nigerian descent whose work delves into themes of migration, identity, and social justice. Her poem ‘M-moments’ won  the UHRSN poetry award. Her work has been featured in various international anthologies and literary magazines. She has also received the Ken Saro-Wiwa prize and serves as a poetry critic for the IRC-funded Diversifying Irish Poetry (DIP) project, promoting inclusivity in the Irish literary scene.

Iva Yates is a bilingual (English/ Spanish) Puerto Rican writer living in Limerick, Ireland. She was chosen as one of 20 fellows for the Shared Island Freedom to Write 2025 project, sponsored by The John Hewitt Society and Irish PEN.  In 2024, she was awarded with an Agility Award from the Arts Council for my current work in progress, The forest of living trees. Her writing has been published in national and international journals and magazines in both English and Spanish. “Ídem” won the first prize at the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico Short Story Competition and her poetry has been shortlisted for the Hennessy Literary Award in the Emerging Poetry category. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Limerick which was awarded with no corrections for “The Golden Comb: A Novel and Critical Analysis.”

Born and raised in India, Dr Tapasya Narang moved to Ireland in 2017 and embraced it as her home. Her work as a poet, critic, educator and arts administrator centres on celebrating marginalised histories of artistic resistance to social injustices in Ireland and beyond. She is dedicated to archiving and celebrating contributions of small presses and writers’ collectives in shaping the cultural canon. Her edited issue of Poetry Ireland’s Trumpet focused on celebrating such lesser-known voices in the Irish literary sphere. Dr Narang’s poems can be found in the narrow sheet Flaire. Her reviews and essays have appeared in RTE Brainstorm, The Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Books Ireland and Trumpet. Her first book on selected Indian and Irish poets is under consideration with Bloomsbury. She earned her PhD in English literature in 2021. Her other awards and fellowships include the Arts Council of Ireland’s Agility Award and Research Ireland and the National Library of Ireland’s Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Rafael Mendes is a Brazilian-Irish migrant whose work has recently appeared or is upcoming in Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, Wasafari, gorse and Poetry Salzburg Review. He was part of Poetry Ireland Introductions 2023 and his pamphlet, The Migrant Dictionary, was a co-winner of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Pamphlet Series 2025.

Ashwin Chacko is a positively playful, award-winning author-illustrator and motivational speaker. He is on a mission to champion creativity to shape culture through talks, books, videos and workshops. Ashwin specialises in positive visual storytelling. He helps companies connect with their audience through illustrations & design. He is interested in uncovering the social interactions that drive culture. He seeks to capture these moments in bold lines & shapes; his compositions focus on a strong use of characters intermingled with typography and patterns.

His books include: A Little Book About Justice by A Kids Company About (USA) 2021, Everybody Feels Fear by DK Press (UK 2022), Illustrator of What Do You Think written by Matthew Syed by Hachette (UK 2022), Wild City by O’Brien Press shortlisted for An Post Award (Irl 2023) and illustrator on I Am The Wind: a collection of Irish Poems by Little Island (2023) winner of An Post Award.

You can find his work here: www.whackochacko.com

Charlot Kristensen was born in Denmark to a Zimbabwean mother and a Danish father. She moved to Ireland at the age of sixteen, and has now lived abroad for nearly twenty years. She started drawing when she was a child and has always had a love for comics and animations. Charlot now works as an illustrator and author. She debuted her graphic novel What We Don’t Talk About in 2020 with Avery Hill, since then she has illustrated four picture books with authors: Hey, You! by Dapo Adeola, Bessie the Motorcycle Queen by Charles R. Smith Jr, One Day in June by Tourmaline and Salon Saturday by Janelle Harper, due to come out in September 2025. As someone with a mixed heritage, Charlot longed to see characters who looked like her in books; her art therefore emphasizes diverse representation, with a focus on empowering Black people. She primarily works in digital art, using Procreate to create colourful and fun pieces.