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Residency

Kayo Chingonyi

The UK Literature residency offers a writer resident anywhere in Britain the opportunity to work on their own project whilst in the company of artists across other artforms. The residency, of up to six weeks in length, can be for writers in any genre, including poetry, memoir and fiction. Previous UK Writer residents include Brian Chikwava, Russell Celyn Jones, Claire Wigfall, Helen Cross.

Kayo Chingonyi was born in Zambia in 1987, moving to the UK in 1993. He holds a BA in English Literature from The University of Sheffield and an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London and works as a writer, events producer, and creative writing tutor.

His poems have been published in a range of magazines and anthologies including Poetry Review, Magma, Wasafiri, The Best British Poetry 2011 (Salt Publishing, 2011), The Salt Book of Younger Poets (Salt Publishing, 2011), Out Of Bounds (Bloodaxe, 2012), The World Record (Bloodaxe, 2012), and in a debut pamphlet entitled Some Bright Elegance (Salt Publishing, 2012)

Kayo has also been invited to read from his work at venues and events across the UK and internationally including London Literature Festival, The Big Chill, Shakespeare’s Globe, The RSC Swan Theatre, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Buckingham Palace, State Theatre of South Africa (Pretoria), New Space Theatre (Cape Town), Museum Africa (Johannesburg), Manarat Al Saadiyat (Abu Dhabi) and Palacio de Minería (Mexico City). In 2012 he represented Zambia at Poetry Parnassus, a festival of world poets staged by The Southbank Centre as part of the London 2012 Festival.