Join Torch Literary Arts, in partnership with Texas State University, and the Carver Museum, for Writers Across the Diaspora featuring award-winning British poet, Dr. Malika Booker!
Date: February 19, 2026
Doors Open: 6:30 p.m. CT
Reading: 7:00 p.m. CT
Location: George Washington Carver Museum, 1165 Angelina St, Austin, TX 78702
Dr. Malika Booker is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage, and co-founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (A writer’s collective). The Anthology - Two Young, Two Black, Too Different, Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen was recently published to celebrate Malika Poetry Kitchen’s twenty-year anniversary. Her pamphlet Breadfruit, (flippedeye, 2007) received a Poetry Society recommendation, and her poetry collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press, 2013) was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize for first full collection. She is published with the Poets Sharon Olds and Warsan Shirein The Penguin Modern Poet Series 3: Your Family: Your Body (2017). Booker and Shara McCallum recently co-edited the issue of Stand Journal curating an anthology of poems by African American, Black British, & Caribbean Women & Identifying Writers. Booker currently hosts and curates Peepal Tree Press’s Literary podcast, New Caribbean Voices. A Cave Canem Fellow, and inaugural Poet in Residence at The Royal Shakespeare Company, Malika was awarded the Cholmondeley Award (2019) for outstanding contribution to poetry and elected a Royal Society of Literature Fellow (2022). Her poem The Little Miracles, commissioned by and published in Magma 75(autumn 2019) won The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (2020). Her poem Libation, published in Poetry Review (winter 2022) won The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (2023).
Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, retreats, and special events.
This program is made possible with support from the Austin Economic Division, the Burdine Johnson Foundation, the Austin Community Foundation, Texas State University English Department, and the Carver Museum.
Author photo by Josimar Senior Black Writers Guild.
Won't you celebrate with us?
Please consider donating to support Torch and help fuel our flame for generations to come.
Celebrate Herstory
$25.00 - Celebrate the vast contributions of Black women writers throughout history.
$75.00 - Celebrate Torch Magazine and the 300+ emerging and established writers it has featured, including LaToya Watkins, Lisa B. Thompson, Debora DEEP Mouton, Ebony Stewart, Sapphire, and Andrea Vocab Sanderson.
Trailblazer
$100.00 - Honor how Torch helps to light a path for Black women writers to have their voices, stories, and perspectives heard and held here in the U.S. and abroad. Torch Magazine has been recognized by the Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses, and the Writers Across the Diaspora program has welcomed international writers to Central Texas since 2024.
About This Event
Join Torch Literary Arts, in partnership with Texas State University, and the Carver Museum, for Writers Across the Diaspora featuring award-winning British poet, Dr. Malika Booker!
Date: February 19, 2026
Doors Open: 6:30 p.m. CT
Reading: 7:00 p.m. CT
Location: George Washington Carver Museum, 1165 Angelina St, Austin, TX 78702
Dr. Malika Booker is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage, and co-founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (A writer’s collective). The Anthology - Two Young, Two Black, Too Different, Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen was recently published to celebrate Malika Poetry Kitchen’s twenty-year anniversary. Her pamphlet Breadfruit, (flippedeye, 2007) received a Poetry Society recommendation, and her poetry collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press, 2013) was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize for first full collection. She is published with the Poets Sharon Olds and Warsan Shirein The Penguin Modern Poet Series 3: Your Family: Your Body (2017). Booker and Shara McCallum recently co-edited the issue of Stand Journal curating an anthology of poems by African American, Black British, & Caribbean Women & Identifying Writers. Booker currently hosts and curates Peepal Tree Press’s Literary podcast, New Caribbean Voices. A Cave Canem Fellow, and inaugural Poet in Residence at The Royal Shakespeare Company, Malika was awarded the Cholmondeley Award (2019) for outstanding contribution to poetry and elected a Royal Society of Literature Fellow (2022). Her poem The Little Miracles, commissioned by and published in Magma 75(autumn 2019) won The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (2020). Her poem Libation, published in Poetry Review (winter 2022) won The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (2023).
Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, retreats, and special events.
This program is made possible with support from the Austin Economic Division, the Burdine Johnson Foundation, the Austin Community Foundation, Texas State University English Department, and the Carver Museum.
Author photo by Josimar Senior Black Writers Guild.
Won't you celebrate with us?
Please consider donating to support Torch and help fuel our flame for generations to come.
Celebrate Herstory
$25.00 - Celebrate the vast contributions of Black women writers throughout history.
$75.00 - Celebrate Torch Magazine and the 300+ emerging and established writers it has featured, including LaToya Watkins, Lisa B. Thompson, Debora DEEP Mouton, Ebony Stewart, Sapphire, and Andrea Vocab Sanderson.
Trailblazer
$100.00 - Honor how Torch helps to light a path for Black women writers to have their voices, stories, and perspectives heard and held here in the U.S. and abroad. Torch Magazine has been recognized by the Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses, and the Writers Across the Diaspora program has welcomed international writers to Central Texas since 2024.
Getting There
George Washington Carver Museum
1165 Angelina St.
Austin, Texas 78702
United States
