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Flesh and Paper: Celebrating Intercultural Lesbian Poetry

Flesh and Paper: Celebrating Intercultural Lesbian Poetry

As part of Queer History Club we are super excited to bring you an evening of poetry & DIY collaborative writing with PhD candidate Sreya Chatterjee!

In 1986, Suniti Namjoshi and Gillian Hanscombe collaborated on Flesh and Paper: a book of poetry that narrates their shared experiences as women, lesbians, poets and lovers. Hailing from a diasporic Indian, and white Australian background, Namjoshi and Hanscombe discovered the British queer scene as their meeting ground, and created a fascinating poetic dialogue celebrating female desire and queer eroticism. 

Join doctoral researcher Sreya Chatterjee for an evening of poetry and uncover more about how queer art forms a bridge between cultural differences, thereby subverting the simplistic imagining of a predominantly white and phallocentric queer space in 80s and 90s Britain. We will start with selected readings from Namjoshi and Hanscombe's poetry. Then, to celebrate these pioneering creative collaborations, we will create some DIY collaborative poetry of our own!

Sreya Chatterjee is a PhD candidate at the School of English, University of Leeds. This event is a result of her internship with the Bishopsgate Institute in London, which currently houses one of the largest LGBTQIA archives in the UK. Her other research interests include travel writing, postcolonialism, gender studies and popular culture. She also writes poetry in her spare time and has been published in LiveWire, Setu, and Poetry and Audience.

Kit Heyam is a Leeds-based heritage practitioner, trans awareness trainer, academic and author of Before We Were Trans.

Date: Thursday 23rd July 2025
Time: 7-9pm
Venue: The Bookish Type, 77a Great George Street, LS1 3BR

Tickets are on a sliding scale (£8 /£5 / £3 / £0)

Please be honest about your financial situation when selecting what to pay for your ticket. If you purchase a ticket at the lowest end of the scale when you could afford the higher ticket prices, it makes it harder for us to provide financial flexibility to those who most need it.

  • £8 "I have more than enough to comfortably meet my basic financial needs and can afford to contribute a little extra to support access for others."
  • £5 "I am comfortably able to meet all of my basic financial needs."
  • £3 "I may stress about meeting my basic financial needs but still regularly achieve them."
  • £0 "I have no disposable income to afford the event"

Tickets are only refundable up to 7 days before the event starts. Please email to cancel.

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Access Info

The shop has an 8cm step but we have a ramp we can put in place if required.
There is a downstairs bathroom with toilet and hand basin.
There is a range of seating including chairs that are armless with padded seats and backs, armless sofa, bench with cushions.
Face masks are encouraged but not required; an H13 HEPA  air purifier will be in use. 
On street parking available (charges may apply).
Please email in advance if you have any specific access needs: thebookishtypeleeds@gmail.com