An Evening of Poetry with Bloomsbury and Nine Arches Press

We are delighted to be hosting a joint reading between four poets across Bloomsbury and Nine Arches Press: Karen McCarthy Woolf, Troy Cabida, Safa Khatib and Jennifer Wong.

Ranging from the aftermath of colonialism across London and LA, to the way language inhabits the ever-changing self, to the vibrant neon landscape of the queer body, to the workings of time as it entangles with memory, these four poets capture the plurality of the human experience throughout their work.

It is such a pleasure to be welcoming all of them to Edinburgh for a special collaborative event. We hope to see you there!

Each voucher is fully redeemable against any of the following event books: Unsafe by Karen McCarthy Woolf, Neon Manilla by Troy Cabida, A Dress of Locusts by Safa Khatib, and Light Year by Jennifer Wong.

Born in London to English and Jamaican parents, Karen McCarthy Woolf FRSL is a poet, editor, essayist and librettist. Her début An Aviary of Small Birds was an Observer Book of the Year and her verse novel Top Doll was shortlisted for the T S Eliot and Jhalak Prizes. As a postdoctoral Fulbright Scholar at UCLA she was the inaugural poet in residence at the Promise Institute for Human Rights. In 2025, she won a Society of Authors Cholmondeley Award and the Jerwood Prize for Poetry (England).

Troy Cabida is the author of Neon Manila (2025), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. His other works include War Dove (2020), Symmetric of Bone (2024), Two Poems (2025), and Neon Manila: The Album (2025). He currently works as co-editor for fourteen poems and library assistant for the National Poetry Library.

Safa Khatib is a poet, translator and teacher. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals, including Words Without Borders, the Baffler, the Kenyon Review and the White Review. She is the recipient of support from the US Fulbright Program and the Stadler Center for Poetry, among other institutions. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri.

Jennifer Wong is the author of 回家Letters Home (Nine Arches) and Light Year, forthcoming from Nine Arches Press in February 2026. Her other pamphlets include Time Difference  (Verve) and Diary of a Miu Miu Salesgirl (Bitter Melon Poetry). She is currently editing a Rebecca Swift Foundation anthology of women’s poetry, Woman, Mapped forthcoming from Fly on the Wall Press in mid-2026. She teaches creative writing part-time. She will be a visiting lecturer for the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong for Spring term of 2026.