Join us for a special PBS Showcase in collaboration with Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts (NCLA), with readings from Grace Nichols, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, and Don Mee Choi.
- 11th November, 6.30 - 7.30pm
- Curtis Auditorium, Herschel Building, Newcastle University, NE1 7RY
- Free, booking required
Grace Nichols
Born in Guyana, Grace Nichols has lived in Britain since 1977. Her first collection, I is a Long-Memoried Woman (1983), won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Four subsequent poetry collections were published by Virago: The Fat Black Woman’s Poems (1984), Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (1989), Sunris (1996), winner of the Guyana Prize, and Startling the Flying Fish (2006), poems which tell the story of the Caribbean. Her later books from Bloodaxe are Picasso, I Want My Face Back (2009); I Have Crossed an Ocean: Selected Poems (2010); The Insomnia Poems (2017); Passport to Here and There (2020), a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation; and The Tracks of My Name (2026), our Winter 2026 Choice. She lives in Sussex with the poet John Agard and their family. She was made a Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020. Grace Nichols received The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry for 2021 from HM Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle in 2022.
Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe
Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe is a poet, pacifist and fabulist. Born in India, she grew up across the Middle East, Europe and North America, before calling Ireland home. Founder of the Play It Forward Fellowships, she is poetry editor at Skein Press and Fallow Media, and contributing editor with The Stinging Fly, and an advisory board member of Ledbury Poetry Critics Ireland. She is a recipient of the Next Generation Artist Award in Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland and the inaugural Ireland Chair of Poetry Student Award. Her latest collection, Stay Winter, is our PBS Recommendation for Winter 2026.
Don Mee Choi
Don Mee Choi is a highly innovative poet and a translator. Her work slips between forms, mixing poetry, lyric essay, memoir, and visual image. Incorporating archives, photographs and fragments of memory, Choi’s poetry explores historical events and the human impact of war. She was born in Seoul, South Korea, into a family forced to leave Korea in 1972 when she was a child, during the Park Chung Hee dictatorship. Her books include the highly acclaimed KOR-US trilogy (Hardly War DMZ Colony and Mirror Nation, the three titles originally published in the USA by Wave Books between 2016 and 2024). DMZ Colony won the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry. Her translations of Kim Hyesoon’s poetry won the 2019 International Griffin Poetry Prize and the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.
Book your ticket here.