Join us as we welcome Sabrina Mahfouz, editor of the new anthology SMASHING IT: WORKING CLASS ARTISTS ON LIFE, ART, AND MAKING IT HAPPEN, for a discussion of the experiences of working class artists with contributor Salena Godden.

Working-class artists continue to be hugely underrepresented in the arts industries, though they make up a third of the British population. These professions are already notoriously hard to get into, but working class artists face extra challenges, from unpaid work reinforcing social disparity, to prejudice. How do we break this cycle of inequality in the arts?

In Smashing It, leading musicians, playwrights, visual artists, filmmakers and writers share how they overcame obstacles, from the financial to the philosophical, to make it in the arts. Edited by acclaimed poet and playwright Sabrina Mahfouz, it celebrates the achievements of working class artists in Britain, from the global takeover of Grime musicians to the literary powerhouses pushing representative narratives, and empowers those who will be a part of tomorrow’s cultural landscape.

Includes a guide section on how to make it in the arts, and contributions from Kerry Hudson, DJ Target, Riz Ahmed, Bridget Minamore, Anthony Anaxagorou, Salena Godden, Madani Younis and Bryony Kimmings, among others.

Sabrina Mahfouz is the editor of THE THINGS I WOULD TELL YOU: BRITISH MUSLIM WOMEN WRITE, a 2017 Guardian Book of the Year and the forthcoming SMASHING IT: WORKING CLASS ARTISTS ON LIFE, ART, AND MAKING IT HAPPEN. She has recently been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and is the recipient of the 2018 King’s Alumni Arts & Culture Award. She has won a Sky Arts Academy Award for Poetry, a Westminster Prize for New Playwrights and a Fringe First Award for her play Chef. Her play With a Little Bit of Luck won the 2019 Best Drama Production at the BBC Radio & Music Awards. She also writes for children and her play Zeraffa Giraffa won a 2018 Off West End Award. She’s an essay contributor to the multi-award-winning THE GOOD IMMIGRANT and is currently writing a biopic of the rapper and producer Wiley, for Pulse Films.

Salena Godden is one of Britain’s foremost poets whose electrifying live performances have earned her a devoted following. Her latest poetry collection, PESSIMISM IS FOR LIGHTWEIGHTS, was published by Rough Trade Books in July 2018 in the first Rough Trade Editions series. Her earlier books include the poetry collections UNDER THE PIER and FISHING IN THE AFTERMATH: POEMS 1994-2014, and the literary childhood memoir SPRINGFIELD ROAD (Unbound), and her essay ‘Shade’ was published in the ground breaking essay anthology THE GOOD IMMIGRANT. Her live poetry album LIVEwire was released with indie spoken word label Nymphs and Thugs and was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award.