Join Becca to welcome poets Zain Richi, Jennifer Wong and Mia Scattergood to the bakery stage.

We are welcoming the brilliant Becca Drake as our Rise Up! guest-host in September. She (in turn) will be welcoming Zain Rishi, Jennifer Wong and Mia Scattergood to the bakery stage - and we can't wait!

Zain Rishi is a writer from Birmingham, UK. He won the 27th annual Ware Poets Competition and was longlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2026. His poetry has featured in magazines such as Oxford Poetry, Gutter, Propel, Wildness and Magma. His debut pamphlet, "Noon", came out in February 2026 with the Emma Press and was a Shakespeare & Company Year of Reading selection.

Jennifer Wong is the author of several collections including Light Year (2026) and Letters Home (2020), both published by Nine Arches Press and which have received the Poetry Book Society Commendations. Wong has a creative writing PhD in creative writing from Oxford Brookes and teaches creative writing part-time. She also the author of Identity, Home and Writing Elsewhere (Bloomsbury). She has recently edited Woman, Mapped, Rebecca Swift Foundation women’s poetry anthology (Fly on the Wall Press, 2026).

Mia Scattergood (she/her) is a poet and fiction writer from the North of England. Her work has been published in Propel, 34 Orchard, The Greenhouse Magazine, and Black Sheep, among others. She has been shortlisted for the Propel poetry prize and the Heroica poetry prize. Mia studied English literature at the University of York, where she was creative writing editor at Nouse, and chair of the Poetry Society. She works with archives, and has worked in poetry with museums.

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