MK Lit Fest welcomes 3 fabulous poets to celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month
For LGTBQ History Month, MK Lit Fest welcomes three poets to their Online Programme as Len Lukowski, Julia Bell and Simon Maddrell share fragments of their own histories as told in their writings, demonstrating the diversity of experience within the community across decades of social change. Book a ticket at www.mklitfest.org
LGBTQ History Month aims to raise awareness of the LGBTQ+ community, while combatting prejudice and celebrating achievement and diversity. While focusing through a specific lens, it offers many of the insights of any form of history – not least, an understanding of how we have come to be where, what, and how we are.
To mark the month, MK Lit Fest invited three LGBTQ poets to read from their own collections, exploring how their personal stories have played out across decades that have seen significant and often turbulent social and societal change.
Len Lukowski is a writer based in Glasgow. He writes poetry, fiction and memoir. Len’s had writing in 14 Poems, Extra Teeth and Magma. He’s played in the queer punk bands Jean Genet, Faggot and Twinken Park. He is a recipient of the Wasafiri prize for New Writing. His first collection, Bodily Fluids, was published in 2025 by Broken Sleep Books, who also published his pamphlet, The Bare Thing, in 2022. He is currently working on a queer, gothic novel set in the southside of Glasgow.
Julia Bell is a Professor of New Writing at Birkbeck, University of London. She is the author of three novels, a poetry collection, Hymnal (Parthian Books), and the acclaimed essay Radical Attention (Peninsula Press). Her new book, Between the Lines: Life Lessons from the Writing Workshop, will be published by Simon & Schuster in May 2026.
Simon Maddrell writes as a queer Manx man, living with HIV in Brighton & Hove. Since 2019, over 200 of his poems have appeared in numerous publications including & Change, AMBIT, Acumen, Gutter, Magma, MODRON, Poetry Wales, SAND, Southword, Stand, The Gay & Lesbian Review, The London Magazine, The Moth, The Rialto, Under the Radar. In 2020, Simon’s debut chapbook, Throatbone, was published by UnCollected Press, and Queerfella jointly-won The Rialto Open Pamphlet Competition. Isle of Sin (Polari Press, 2023); The Whole Island (Valley Press, 2023); a finger in derek jarman's mouth (Polari Press, 2024) were all Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Selections. Out-Spoken Press publish Simon's debut collection, lamping wild rabbits, in Feb 2026.
Join them online on 24 February to see how individual histories shed light on the broader tapestry of LGTBQ life across recent decades of British life. Tickets are available to book now, and all are – as ever – very welcome
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