I've spent a decade putting literature at the heart of culture - and culture at the heart of literature.

Before founding Studio Lemara, I spent five years at Penguin Random House as the first editor to lead #Merky Books, Stormzy's award-winning imprint. There I published bold voices from untraditional spaces - books that offered new ways of seeing and being, and that had no business being ignored by the mainstream. Among them: Keisha the Sket by Jade LB, which won a British Book Award; Caster Semenya's autobiography which was shortlisted for a Telegraph Sports Book of the Year; and the forthcoming Britico by Ore Ogunbiyi.

Alongside that, I co-founded and edited Plantain Papers - an independent print journal and literary ode to the people and cultures that shape us.

Now, through Studio Lemara, I work across two spaces: developing authors and providing creative direction for publishers and brands with a literary focus, and curating live cultural programming - including as Talks Tent and The Knowledge Programmer at We Out Here Festival, where I shape conversations that move people, challenge dominant narratives, and celebrate the communities building new cultural legacies.

What drives me is simple: global majority voices. People doing extraordinary things in culture. And the belief that literature belongs everywhere.