London Covert Literary Magazine Issue 4 Launch

Start: Sunday 17 November, 2024

End: Sunday 17 November, 2024

This is a free event and great opportunity to celebrate the publication of Covert Issue 4 with us and hear live readings from some of the contributors including Shabnam Shabazi, Zita Holbourne, Niharika Jain, Sheyna Lam, Jasmine Sharif and Seema Kapila.

The event will be hosted by WOL CEO/Founder Amy Zamarripa Solis, with Guest Editor Elaine Chiew.

Plus a chance to take part in an open mic slot for local writers and poets, up to 3 minutes per person. Please email info@writingourlegacy.org.uk to sign up.

We’ll have copies of the mag for sale, plus back issues. You can also pre-purchase your book when you book your ticket.

About Covert Issue 4

Covert Issue 4/Autumn 2024 focuses on the theme of ‘Handmade/Made By Hand’ with Co-Guest Editors Scottish-based poets Sean Wai Keung and Titilayo Farukuoye and fiction writer Elaine Chiew at the helm. New writing and artwork covers everything diaspora community past and present, from tea making at Chinese New Year to QTIPOC community-making in the park, by 31 Global Majority contributors from countries such as India, Pakistan, Uganda, US, UK, Mexico and China.

These rich contributions explore food and food rituals, festivals and celebrations, music, needlework, sewing and seamstressing, home- and community-building, conversations and connection and tapestry, hairdressing, lovemaking and sexuality, births and deaths, existing and resisting, older age and more.

Contributors: Amy Zamarripa Solis, Asha Krishna, Barsa Ray, Be Manzini, Clare Serugo, Dean Atta, Elaine Chiew, Hannah Collisson, Heather Pearson, Hongwei Bao, Jasmine Sharif, Jenny Arach, Joyoti Grech, Lesa Ng, Marina Murphy, Natalia Equihua, Niharika Jain, Nina Bhirangi-Bishop, Sean Wai Keung, Seema Kapila, Shabnam Shabazi, Shasta Hanif Ali, Sheyna Zaid Lam, Snehal Amembal, S.D. Chatterjee, Sunita Crowley, Teji Dhaliwal, Titilayo Farukuoye, Umi Sinha, Zara Masood, Zita Holbourne.

Editorial Team: Zita Holbourne, Akila Richards, Tammye Huf, Alessandra Duse, Amy Zamarripa Solis.

Print, digital and institutional subscriptions of Covert 4 are now available

Covert Literary Magazine is supported by Arts Council England. Writing Our Legacy is part of ACE’s National Portfolio Programme.

About Covert

Covert Literary Magazine is a yearly publication of literature and visual art for Black, Asian and ethnically diverse writers and artists of colour. The magazine is based in Brighton, UK and was established in 2020. We publish fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, hybrid forms and artwork, with future issues embracing more experimental, journalism and audio visual content. Our aim is to provide a platform for new and underrepresented diverse talent for whom mainstream publishing opportunities are inaccessible, whose work is reviewed, edited and published alongside more established names. 

With each issue, we welcome Guest Editors and an Editorial Board of writers, creatives and artists from across England and the UK. Previous Guest Editors include Umi Sinha, Dean Atta, Mohammed Z. Rahman, AFLO. the poet, Jessica J. Lee, Sean Wai Keung, Titilayo Farukuoye and Elaine Chiew. The Editorial Board is led by CEO/Founder Amy Zamarripa Solis with invited guests. Our previous Editorial Board has included Sharon Duggal, Katy Massey, Jasmine Isa Qureshi, Akila M. Richards, Zita Holbourne FRSA and Tammye Huf. Covert Literary Magazine is published by Writing Our Legacy CIC.

The magazine is available as print, digital and institutional subscriptions, with back issues available from our online shop.

Writing Our Legacy CIC is an arts and heritage organisation that enables Black, Asian and ethnically diverse/BPOC* people to tell their story through writing and the creative arts. We were established in 2012.

We give writers and other creatives a platform and community to feel supported, nurtured and evolve their work through the creative pipeline, from start to publication. We share stories and heritage of diaspora communities and bring them to life through various art forms for audiences to learn and take part in cultural heritage. We are an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.

*BPOC stands for ‘Black people, People of Colour’ and is a self-identifying term. While we use the term BPOC, we acknowledge the limitations of this terminology. At the core of our network is the aim to address and overcome systemic barriers that our members face directly or indirectly based on their ethnic or national identities, race or perceived racial identities, or the colour of their skin as per the Equality Act of 2010. This includes people who identify as Black, brown, people of colour, Global Majority, mixed-race, multiple heritage and/or are from the Global South, and/or are East and South-East Asian, West Asian, Asian, Middle Eastern, African, African-Caribbean, Caribbean, Latinx, Pacific Islander, Indigenous, or First Nations, and diasporas.