PANELS

Panels

Meet the Panelists

Sam Ball - Host

Sam Ball is a poet, performer, and natural host with a sharp wit and unmistakable stage presence. With a background in performing, scriptwriting, and digital storytelling, Sam brings both energy and insight to every room he steps into. Known for his clever humour, lyrical playfulness, and love of language, his work draws influence from the absurd brilliance of Lewis Carroll, Spike Milligan, Edward Lear, and Robert Browning, with a style that is both entertaining and deeply engaging. Whether hosting a panel or delivering poetry, Sam creates spaces that feel lively, intelligent, and impossible to ignore.

Adam Gary FRSA

Adam Gary FRSA is a poet, award winning filmmaker and former actor, best known as the inaugural Surrey Poet Laureate. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and proud alumnus of the National Youth Theatre, Adam began his creative career working in major productions including Avengers: Age of Ultron, Downton Abbey and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, later returning to screen work with the recent Bob Marley: One Love. His transition into poetry and filmmaking led to the creation of his works including Poetry in Motion, the White Cover Trilogy and The Early Hours. During the pandemic, his poem “And In Our Loneliness We Came Together” was archived by the Surrey History Centre in recognition of its cultural significance during a historic moment. Alongside appearances on Brooklands Radio, BBC Radio London and BBC Radio Surrey, Adam has built a global poetry audience through The Poetry Cove and his YouTube channel, which has amassed nearly 10,000 subscribers, establishing him as a distinctive and inspiring voice in contemporary poetry.

Katie Griffiths

Katie Griffiths grew up in Ottawa, Canada – the daughter of Northern Irish parents. Now based in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, Katie is author of The Attitudes (Nine Arches Press) and the prize-winning My Shrink is Pregnant (Live Canon). She came second in 2018’s National Poetry Competition, and in 2024 won the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize with ‘Before I stillbirthed the birch’, a poem also selected for this year’s Pushcart Prize 50th Anniversary Anthology. A member of the poetry platform Red Door Poets, she is often involved in online and live poetry events. She has read her poetry at festivals in Belfast, Aldeburgh, Ledbury, Much Wenlock, Arundel, Cork, Bantry, and Cordoba. As a teacher of long-standing, her workshops have occurred in a variety of places – libraries, colleges, healing centres, village halls, also including Alfoxton House in Somerset, a former home of William and Dorothy Wordsworth where Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a frequent visitor. Currently Katie runs workshops at the Riverhouse Barn Arts Centre in Walton-on-Thames, where she also presents the monthly Live Poetry sessions that feature two guest headliners and open mic poets. Themes that Katie likes to explore in her poetry include the presence, or absence, of trust – in the body, in the mind, and in unseen worlds that swirl around us. Is there a sturdy rust-free peg we can hang our hat on to these days? Her second full collection, Mindset Mindrise, is due from Nine Arches Press this autumn.

Nia Broomhall

Nia Broomhall is Poet in Residence at Painshill Park in Surrey. Her debut pamphlet Backalong won the Mslexia Poetry Pamphlet Prize and was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2024. She won the Poetry Society’s Hamish Canham Award the same year. Her poems have been published in journals including Bad Lilies, Magma, Propel and The North, and she has twice been Highly Commended in the Winchester Poetry Prize. Currently Co-Head of English at a comprehensive school, Nia has been teaching for 25 years. She runs a happy Poetry Club at school as well as workshops and inclusive poetry nights in her local community.

Shaniqua Benjamin

Shaniqua Benjamin is a poet, coach, mentor, and creative facilitator whose work has empowered communities through the power of words for over a decade. Her poetry has been published by Ink, Sweat & Tears, Magma, and RRB Photobooks, with performances ranging from Trinity College Cambridge to Apples & Snakes’ immersive spoken word production Rallying Cry. From 2020–2024, Shaniqua served as Croydon’s first Poet Laureate, leading workshops, performances, and community projects across the borough. As a proud Caribbean Croydoner, she also collaborated with the National Portrait Gallery and Museum of Croydon on Citizen UK: Croydon’s Caribbean Influencers. In 2019, she was longlisted for the Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry in Performance and named to The Blacklist: GUAP’s 30 Under 30. Her work continues to champion creativity, connection, and empowerment, including writing a poem for Leigh-Anne Pinnock’s 2024 headline show following a standout appearance at the One Young World summit in Manchester.