Youth Advisory Board

Our Youth Advisory Board, established in early 2021, is a collective of young creatives aged 16 to 25 who advocate and create opportunities for young people in Nottingham. They work with Nottingham City of Literature to spread a love for words and literature across the city through holding their own events, as well as supporting and giving feedback on our existing projects and future direction.

Members attend fun monthly meetings where they talk about things including:

  • planning upcoming events or sharing ideas for future events
  • developing a creative skill
  • giving feedback on Nottingham City of Literature’s projects and strategic direction.

In return, Youth Board members can expect to receive:

  • free books and event tickets
  • skills development sessions
  • paid experience in event planning and delivery 
  • advice on starting a career in the creative sector.

Meet the YAB Team 

The Youth Advisory Board

Mia Hagues

Chair
Mia Hagues is a poet from a small town just outside Nottingham. She is the YAB Chair. She usually writes on trains, and has founded her own writing group, ‘The Right to Write Collective’, through which she hosts bimonthly open mics at Mansfield Museum. The poetry world is one she found by accident, and she wants to help others stumble across it too, making it more accessible. Her open mics are a safe space for first time performers, and her dream is to become a published poet.

Henry Lambert

Vice Chair

Henry Lambert is a Notts-based writer of poetry and prose, who has been writing since he was 7, compelled by Mary Oliver poems, open mics and an eternal need to learn bigger and fancier words.

He is a member of the Nottingham City Of Literature youth advisory board and the speakeasy collective and has worked with a Writing East Midlands writing group for an Arts Award in creative writing. Henry was commissioned as our first Young Writer in Residency programme at Bromley House Library.  He has also performed twice at the Unislam young writers showcase in Birmingham, having been one of the youngest poets to do so.

On top of juggling A levels and poetry, his literary focus is primary given to writing a nautical dystopian novel that he intends to publish in the near future.

Grace Sanders

Member
Grace is a lyricist and aspiring journalist, and a new member of the Youth Board. She recently graduated from the University of Nottingham with a BA in Classics, and is currently working as the Literary Co-Editor at LeftLion magazine, where she is able to delve into the cultural impact of literature on Nottingham in more detail. Most of her creative writing happens through music and writing original songs with her band. These usually explore themes of transformation, loss and learning to find and love yourself.

Alicia Rafferty-Haslam

Member
Alicia Rafferty-Haslam is currently studying politics, German and history at A Level and is hoping to go on to study politics and German at university. She is interested mostly in novels and longer pieces of work and has a particular interest in historical fiction, such as the works of Alisson Weir as well as more political novels such as the works of Reni Eddo-Lodge or Maya Angelou. She enjoys reading a wide range of works from cultures all round the world as well as translations from other languages.

Jennifer Rajasekar

Member
  Jennifer Rajasekar is an Indian writer, poet, and lyricist currently pursuing a postgraduate degree in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University, UK. She has written lyrics for Indian films and web series, blending storytelling with music to create emotionally resonant work. In 2026, Jennifer served as the Young Producer for the Nottingham Poetry Festival and was a member of the Big City Reads Youth Selection Panel. Her poetry and prose explore themes of love, memory, healing, and human connection. Jennifer is currently working on her debut novel while continuing to write poetry, songs, and literary fiction.

Shalmika Sivakumar

Member
Shalmika Sivakumar is a creative writing graduate (MA, Nottingham Trent University) and an aspiring educator who loves finding romance hiding in mundane moments and turning them into stories. She’s currently writing her debut romance novel, Peach Soda, and reaches for poetry whenever inspiration or a good trip away catches her off guard. Since moving to Nottingham, she’s found her creative home through Speak Easy, which has kept her close to her writing roots. Two years as social media intern for Nottingham Poetry Festival taught her to tell stories across every kind of media and she’s since grown into her role as Speak Easy’s Comms Coordinator.

Flynn Ledger

Member
Flynn Ledger is a Mansfield-based poet, occasional fiction writer. He is a frequent attendee of the Speak Easy spoken word collective, and works as a shadow writer for the Mansfield Young Writers Group run by Writing East Midlands. Flynn has a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University, and is going back to do his Master’s in 2026. He was a writer-in-residence at Bromley House Library in 2025, and he has been published in several anthologies since, including GREEBO’s ‘Power’ zine, Write Queer’s first and second publications, and the WEMterns ‘A Question of Hope’ collection. His poem ‘Roots’ was recently shortlisted for the Writing On The Wall poetry competition and will appear in the respective anthology shortly!

Lucy Bronwen Davies

Member

Lucy Bronwen Davies is an ecological artist and facilitator, graduating with a First Class BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University in 2024, where she received the Ecological Awareness and Sustainability Award.

Currently she works as a freelance facilitator, events producer and content curator across arts organisations, schools and community spaces in Nottinghamshire. Lucy has been in residence at Haarlem Artspace and the East Midlands Graduate Project with Surface. She had exhibited predominantly across the East Midlands including ILKON, BACKLIT and Surface. Alongside Chairing Connecting Notts, a Board Trustee of Young Creatives Nottingham, and a current studio holder and member of the Chaos Magic Collective at BACKLIT.

Aarya Handa

Member
Aarya Handa is an emerging writer and creative based in Nottingham. She is the 2026 Under 25 Writer in Residence at Nottingham Women’s Centre. Aarya is also a member of Nottingham City of Literature’s Youth Advisory Board and Connecting Notts’ Youth Board, where she is a youth voice advocate. She works with local organisations such as the Renewal Trust and the National Literacy Trust to deliver activities for children and champion reading for leisure. Aarya was on the Youth Selection Panel for the books of the ‘Big City Reads’ 2026 campaign and contributed a poem to Adoption East Midlands’ creative writing project, which was selected for publication in their ‘Book of Belonging’ booklet. She is currently working on multiple poetry collections, which she hopes to publish in future!

Ava Richmond Blum

Member

Ava is a Nottingham-based poet and aspiring journalist, for whom writing has always been an escape.

For several years she has been working to promote higher literacy rates across communities in Nottingham, volunteering in a primary school in Sneinton for two years to aid children with their literacy skills. She also provides tuition services in English.

More recently she has embraced her creative side, performing her poetry at several open mics with Right to Write and Speak Easy - and planning on more in the future!

Past events 

The Youth Advisory Board organise lots of exciting, innovative events specifically designed for young people throughout the year. Take a look at some of their past events and keep an eye on our website and social media channels for future plans – we would love to see you there!

Opportunities

Being part of the Youth Board has given members access to some wonderful opportunities – check out the links below to find out more.

  • Henry Lambert was selected as one of our first Young Writers in Residence, responding to the personal library of Alan Silitoe at Bromley House Library.
  • Elle Jacobson has been commissioned to write two poems for projects with Exeter City of Literature: Illustrating the Wor(l)d (2024) and The Gaia Papers (2023).
  • Annie Cross represented Nottingham in Slamovision 2023, and was a judge in 2024. To find out what Annie had to say about this opportunity, click here. 
  • Oli Nicol sat on the judging panel for the first ever GOBS Slam, which we supported as part of Nottingham Poetry Festival 2024. Oli wrote a blog piece about the experience. 
  • Mia Hagues represented Nottingham in one of our virtual roundtables for International Youth Day 2024 with young writers from Cities of Literature around the world, which you can find out about here. Mia has also set up the Right to Write poetry collective and open mic.
  • Abigail Hutchison and Connor Brown founded the Speak Easy spoken word collective, which has gone from strength to strength with support from Writing East Midlands and Nottingham Playhouse.
Feedback from Youth Board members

“I have enjoyed attending meetings and participating in discussions about current and future projects”.

“One year on, I can gladly say I am so happy I applied and even more grateful to be a part of a wonderful team”.