Out-Spoken

An always special, monthly night of spoken word & poetry:

Award-winning playwright, poet and screenwriter Sabrina Mahfouz releases How You Might Know me with Out-Spoken Press, a poetic exploration of four women’s lives, connected through their experience in different areas of the UK’s growing sex industry. Examining taboos, surprising sexual encounters, the politics of desire, the vastly differing viewpoints on sex work and most prominently and the status of women’s equality in the UK today, How You Might Know Me is certainly a fiery collection of poetry from one of the country’s most exciting writers.

The night will also feature guests: Salena Godden, Katie Bonna, Grace Savage and Bellatrix with an opportunity to have books signed at the end.

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Sabrina Mahfouz is a British Egyptian playwright, poet and screenwriter. Her debut full poetry collection, How You Might Know Me, will be released in October with Outspoken Press. She is currently working with the V&A Museum, Royal Opera House, Saqi Books, Futures Theatre and Clean Break. Her 2016 plays are With a Little Bit of Luck (Paines Plough); Slug (nabokov); Battleface (Bush Theatre); Layla’s Room (Theatre Centre) and The Love I Feel Is Red (Tobacco Factory Theatres). Her TV short, Breaking the Code, was produced by BBC3 & BBC Drama earlier this year. Her play Chef won a 2014 Fringe First Award and Clean was produced by Traverse Theatre and transferred to New York in 2014. Sabrina has been the Sky Arts Academy Scholar for Poetry, Leverhulme Playwright in Residence and Associate Artist at Bush Theatre.

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Salena Godden is a British poet, performer and author living in London. Her short stories and poetry have appeared in numerous publications including Dazed & Confused, Salzburg Review, and Penguin's IC3. Godden records and performs in the ska-punk-breakbeat duo SaltPeter, with Peter Coyte.

Her poetry featured in the three latest anthologies from Tangerine Press entitled Dwang, hand-bound bespoke collections. Godden hosts and produces The Book Club Boutique. She has featured regularly on BBC's The Verb and Bespoken Word and on Radio 4's Saturday Live.

Godden has facilitated workshops for First Story, a charity created by author William Fiennes that aims to foster and nurture literacy and creative writing in secondary schools.

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Katie Bonna is a performance poet, actress and writer for stage and screen. Her poetry play Dirty Great Love Story, co-written with Richard Marsh, won a Fringe First Award at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where she was also nominated for Best Actress by The Stage. The play went on to run at Soho Theatre upstairs and in New York at 59E59 Theaters in 2013.

“Simply dazzling” said The Stage.

Katie is a resident at Aisle 16’s live literature night Homework and is currently writing a comedy television pilot for Wildgaze Films and a new one-woman stage show.

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Grace Savage, a Singer, Actor and Beatboxer, has established a world class reputation in the beatboxing scene. Listed as one of ELLE UK's 'Top 100 inspiring women' alongside the likes of Angelina Jolie and Oprah Winfrey, not only is she the official 2 x UK Beatbox Champion (2012 & 2013) but has recently won the historical title (alongside Bellatrix) as the first ever women to enter and be crowned the UK Team Beatbox Champions (2015).

Grace is now set to break into the music industry with her own solo music. Fronting a live band, beatboxing and singing, she has played Jamie Oliver’s BIG Feastival, Glastonbury and supported Newton Faulkner on his solo tour.

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Bellatrix is a musical explorer and songwriter from the west country, UK. Primarily a bass player and vocalist, she also holds the titles 2009 world beatbox champion, 2014 UK beatbox champion, 2015 beatbox team world champion and 2015 beatbox team UK champion. Unlike most beatboxers, Bellatrix has a degree in jazz double bass from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Her broad palette of influences from hip-hop to jazz, folk, and the downright weird is apparent across her music and character.

Known for her work with independent power-house girl band The Boxettes and psychedelic hip-hop outfit Dizraeli and The Small Gods, It is only now after years of extensive collaborations and international performances as a beatboxer and bassist, that Bellatrix reveals a new slant to her identity as an artist.