The Coast is Queer Launch 2026: Roots, Routes & Futures

Celebrate the launch of The Coast Is Queer 2026 with a vibrant event celebrating the writers and artists connected to the University of Brighton and Sussex University, whose creative communities and educational programmes continue to shape queer literature and culture in the city and beyond.

The festival begins with a screening of Sussex alumnus Dean Atta‘s BAFTA-winning animated short Two Black Boys in Paradise. Dean will be joined by acclaimed author, playwright and University of Brighton Honorary Doctor Neil Bartlett for a conversation exploring poetry, fiction, film and the enduring power of queer storytelling.

The evening continues with performances from two remarkable emerging voices. University of Sussex alumni Ray Filar reads from their debut novella Choke, first developed during their practice-based PhD, while poet and University of Brighton Visiting Researcher Remi Graves shares work from their acclaimed debut collection coal. Together, they’ll discuss beginnings, influence and what it means to write queer lives now.

Spanning generations and disciplines, this joyful opening event celebrates the rich queer literary communities fostered across Brighton and Sussex, and launches a 3-day festival of bold ideas, unforgettable stories and shared celebration.

Dean Atta is an award-winning Black British writer from London known for his heartfelt storytelling rooted in his Greek Cypriot and Jamaican heritage. He writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction for all ages. For adult readers, his poetry collection, I Am Nobody’s Nigger, was shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize, and his memoir, Person Unlimited: An Ode to My Black Queer Body, received praise from Michael Rosen as ‘wonderfully original’. His young adult verse novels are The Black Flamingo, Only on the Weekends, and I Can’t Even Think Straight. The Black Flamingo won the Stonewall Book Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and Jhalak Prize. Malorie Blackman praised the book, saying, ‘I loved every word.’ Dean has also contributed to middle-grade anthologies like Happy Here: 10 stories from Black British Authors & Illustrators and the Instant No. 1 New York Times Bestseller Black Boy Joy: 17 Stories Celebrating Black Boyhood.  His picture book, Confetti, illustrated by Alea Marley, is a colourful celebration of love and life. Additionally, Dean is a screenwriter and executive producer of the animated short film Two Black Boys in Paradise, which was selected for the BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival (and numerous others worldwide), as well as being award Best Animation at the 2025 Ealing Film Festival. In February 2026, the film took home Best Short Animation at the BAFTAs.

Neil Bartlett (chair) has had a forty-year-long career as one of the British queer culture’s most acclaimed and distinctive voices. His first book, the groundbreaking queer history Who was that man ?  was published in 1988; his first novel, Ready to catch him should he fall  followed in 1990. His most recent piece of fiction, Address Book, was published in 2021. Neil also has a parallel career as a playwright, director and performer, and has created work for ( amongst others) the National, the Royal Court, the Royal Shakespeare Company – and the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.

Remi Graves is a poet and drummer. A former Barbican Young Poet, their work has been commissioned by St Paul’s Cathedral, Arthouse Jersey and BBC Radio 4. They have performed at Tate, Cheltenham Literature festival and more. Remi has led courses at The Poetry School and facilitates in schools and community spaces across London and the South East. As a Visiting Researcher at Brighton Uni, Remi has led workshops and delivered lectures around archival poetry and ekphrasis. Remi’s debut pamphlet with your chest was published by fourteen poems in 2022. They were a 2025 La Maison Baldwin Fellow and a writer in residence at Jan Michalski Foundation. Remi is the winner of 2024 Prototype Prize (short form category), coal was published by Monitor Books in 2025.

Ray Filar is a writer, theatre-maker and live artist based in London. They write about work, sex, grief, violence, drugs and racial capitalism through fiction, plays, and creative non-fiction. Choke (Cipher Press, 2026) is their first novella, developed during a practice-based PhD at Sussex University. Their writing has appeared in We Want It All: An Anthology of Trans Poetics (Nightboat Books, 2020), The Guardian, Verso Online, the New Humanist, openDemocracy and Tummyache Magazine. They hosted the left-wing feminist podcast Killjoy FM on Resonance FM (2016-2017), and edited the political essay collection Resist! Against a Precarious Future (Lawrence & Wishart, 2015).  They were co-creative director of Homos and Houmous, a queer, Jewish, anti-Zionist live art theatre company. Performances include: ‘The Daughter’ in Bruce La Bruce’s arthouse feature film The Visitor; Tate Britain and Modern; Royal Court Theatre; Glastonbury Festival; Hayward Gallery; Institute of Contemporary Arts. Instagram: @itsthat_ray.

Supported by Black at Sussex