Suad Kamardeen is a British-Nigerian Muslim writer, editor and a Creative Writing Masters student at the University of Oxford. She is committed to documenting histories and cultures, as well as impacting people’s lives positively through storytelling.

Her young adult novel, Never Enough, won the SI Leeds Literary Prize 2022, and her adult novel was shortlisted for the Stylist Prize for Feminist Fiction 2021. Her writing has also appeared in Bad Form Review and Sapelo Square. She is currently working on an adult and young adult novel, both of which address universal themes of female friendships and sisterhood, joy, mother-daughter relationships, longing, grief, identity and love.

Suad runs Qalb Writers Collective, a community to support Black and Muslim women writers with knowledge and resources. She also co-hosts two podcasts with friends: Bookversations, where she has reflective conversations inspired by books she cares about, and Ọrẹ Meji: Yoruba ni ṣoki, a podcast centred on embracing her mother tongue, Yoruba.

You can find her on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram @suadkamardeen

Favourite Book: This is so hard! My fave changes every time, but at the moment it’s Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi – stellar work of art!

Sahra Malin is a Somali-Dutch writer. She’s motivated by the healing effects of literature and writing, and likes to dabble in various art forms to find new ways to express herself - from photography to watercolour painting.

She is currently working on her debut poetry collection, covering a variety of topics from womanhood and identity to the intersection between love and grief. Her day time is spent in tech, leading product teams that build sustainability minded products.

Sahra is passionate about creating safe spaces for the expression of “otherness”, which she hopes WAYF will provide for many artists and writers. She’s the founder of the Berlin Muslims meet up community and a founding member of the TEDxZurichWomen community.

You can find her on LinkedIn and access some of her musings and photography on Instagram via @sahra.malin

Favourite Book: I refuse to pick :) But I can say that the latest book that left a deep impression on me was “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi. It is rare for me to feel so impacted by each character in a multi-generational family saga. I can only attribute it to Gyasi’s thoughtful and humble writing on the human condition, enabling me to relate to characters so different from each other and from myself.

Kübra Özermiş is a German-Turkish writer from Berlin with a passion for poetry and prose. She has a PhD in English Literature and is a lecturer in English and Irish Cultural and Literary Studies.

She is currently working on her first collection of short stories although her secret favourite genre to write in is science fiction. Her work is deeply influenced by writings of the Turkish working-class diaspora from the 1970s and 1980s in Germany as well as contemporary decolonial and feminist writing. Her research into Irish literature also left a tremendous impact on her writing, which can be seen in the motifs and symbolism she uses. Her writing ranges from tongue-in-cheek observations to explorations of the depth of human experiences.

Favourite Book: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I’m usually not the one to fall for bittersweet love stories, but this one had me in bits. Adichie’s writing style is the cherry on top.