In conversation with Tareq Baconi and Leilah King

What does it mean to write queer lives across borders, exile, memory and resistance? Palestinian writer and scholar Tareq Baconi joins British-Iranian poet Leilah King to explore storytelling shaped by displacement, desire, politics and belonging.

Drawing on work from both writers that spans criticism, poetry, film and activism, the conversation — chaired by journalist, writer and editor Elias Jahshan — will explore the relationship between personal and collective histories, the role of art in confronting violence and erasure, and queer expression across the Middle East and its diasporas. From Jerusalem, Beirut and Amman to Tehran, Shiraz and London, this is a conversation about language, intimacy, identity and survival — and the ways writing can imagine new futures.

Tareq Baconi is a Palestinian writer, scholar, and activist. He is the grandson of refugees from Jerusalem and Haifa and grew up between Amman and Beirut. His work has appeared in, among others, The New York Times and The Baffler, and he contributes essays to The New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. He has also written for film; his award-winning BFI short One Like Him, a queer love story set in Jordan, screened in over thirty festivals. He is the author of Hamas Contained: A History of Palestinian Resistance, which was shortlisted for the Palestine Book Award, and Fire in Every Direction.

Leilah King is a British-Iranian queer poet, academy-level footballer and coach. Author of Midnight Picnics in Tehran and We are Hungry for Androgyny. Her new collection Your Body Bleeds Zereshk is out in 2027. Her work draws inspiration from her heritage and time spent in Tehran and Shiraz, her mother Ensieh Dadkhah’s home city. Leilah has performed across the UK, with headline appearances at the Poetry Café in London, Leeds Poetry Festival, Cheltenham Literature Festival, the Southbank Centre and Out and Wild Festival. In 2021, Leilah was commissioned to write for the Nationwide Building Society ‘Voices’ campaign, creating poetry inspired by football. In 2024, she performed at the Football Pride event at Chelsea Football Club. In 2025 her poem Intimacy, was highly commended by the Forward Prizes.

Elias Jahshan is a Lebanese-Palestinian journalist and writer, and the editor of groundbreaking anthologies This Arab is Queer (2022) and This Queer Arab Family (2025), both published by Saqi Books. This Arab Is Queer was a 2023 Lambda Literary Awards finalist in the USA and shortlisted for the 2023 Bread & Roses Award in the UK, and has been translated into Italian and soon in French. He has also contributed to several anthologies, most recently in Homosexual Intifada (Interlink Books, 2026) with his chapter Palestinian Dreaming. Elias is also a former editor-in-chief of Star Observer, Australia’s longest-running queer media outlet, and has been published in The Guardian, The New Arab, Gay Times, Shado Mag, My Kali, and more.