Malika Booker,

born in the UK, spent thirteen years of her childhood in Guyana, which she says were the best of her life. She currently lives in South London.

A pioneering and creative force in the spoken word, Malika is immersed in poetry. Concerned with identity, responsibility and accountability, through writing she crystalises experiences which have both a personal and universal nature. Her work has been recorded for Radio 4 and features on the poetry compilation album Tongue and Groove.

Malika has also performed with writers Sapphire, Terry McMillan and Earl Lovelace. Her work has been published in the anthologies Bittersweet: contemporary Black Women's poetry and Fire People. An experienced creative writing course leader, she has facilitated and created workshops at North London University, Goldsmiths College, Oval House Theatre, The Arvon Foundation, National Theatre, Young Vic and Greenwich International Festivals and has also developed and taught a performance poetry course for Hackney College.

Malika was commissioned to co-produce a poetry film to commemorate the Royal Festival Hall's 50th Birthday Celebrations in Spring 2001. Her first musical play, in the same year, Catwalk, commissioned by NITRO, ran at the Tricycle Theatre and had a successful UK tour. She was Hampton Court Palace writer in residence in 2004 and also a commissioned writer for Croydon Museum. In 2006 she undertook a three-month writers fellowship in Delhi, India, to work on her first novel Bread Fruit. Malika co-runs 'Malika's Kitchen', a writers' collective based in London and Chicago and is also an education officer for Apples and Snakes.

Britain is a diverse culture. We have the whole globe right here in Britain......be the first to make a stance and break down some of those stereotypes.