Janine is a poet, critic, and academic. Her wide-ranging work on contemporary literature and culture has been published by Bloomsbury, Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge, the Guardian, the Young Vic Theatre and others. Her poems appear in Blood & Cord: Writers on Early Parenthood (The Emma Press, 2023), Oxford Poetry, and Magma. Her debut poetry pamphlet is forthcoming with ignitionpress (2024). Janine has been a repeat guest on BBC Radio 4 (Woman’s Hour and Great Lives). Her current project explores the relationship between love, feeling, and reading. Her debut poetry pamphlet, Sometimes Real Love Comes Quick & Easy, is available to buy this spring from Ignitionpress.
Poetry (publications & readings)
Rise Up! Poetry reading with Charlotte Shevchenko-Knight and Alex Mepham (2023)
“Jellyfish”, “Stranger Days’”, and “Meridian” in Blood & Cord: Writers on Early Parenthood edited by Abi Curtis (Emma Press, 2023).
“it’s 1994 & this brown girl thinks she smells like teen spirit” and “American Smooth” in Magma 85: Poems for Schools edited by Ashley Hickson Lovence, Gill Ward, and Laurie Smith (2023)
York Literature Festival Poetry reading with Shash Trevett and Leo Boix (2023)
“Pulled” published via the Aurora Prize for Writing (2022)
Poetry in Aldeburgh | Poetry London Celebrates 100 Issues with editor André Naffis-Sahely, Rachel Long, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Momtaza Mehri and Jemilea Wisdom-Baako (2021)
Co-organiser of the Ledbury Poetry Critics Scheme (2021; with Sandeep Parmar, Sarah Howe, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Alycia Pirmohamed & Dave Coates)
“On the Occasion of My Son Gumming His First Drumstick” in Oxford Poetry 093 (Winter 21/22)
“SOROR AVE IN DEO” & “The Rum Tasting of the Century” in Black Lines: The Journal of Black British Writing, Issue 1 (2021)
Prizes/recognition
“Finalist: Aurora Prize for Writing (2022; judged by Georgina Wilding)
Nominee: Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship (2021)
Shortlisted: Oxford Brookes International Poetry Prize (2021; judged by Fiona Benson)
Winner: Poetry London Mentorship Scheme Award (2020; mentored by Rachel Long)
Media
BBC Radio 4: Great Lives: Adjoa Andoh on Zora Neale Hurston, Jan 2023.
BBC Radio 4: Woman’s Hour, (interviewed by Jenni Murray about Brit Bennett’s novel The Vanishing Half), 2020
The Guardian “Passing for white”: how a taboo film genre is being revived to expose racial privilege.’, 2018.
BBC Radio 4: Woman’s Hour, (interviewed by Jenni Murray about the career of Zora Neale Hurston), 2013.
The Guardian, “Black, female, and postgraduate: why I cannot be the only one.” 2013
Prose
“In Conversation with Kwame Kwei-Armah.” Beneatha’s Place (Young Vic, 2023).
“On Islands.” Theatre programme essay for Further than the Furthest Thing, dir. Jennifer Tang, written by Zinnie Harris (Young Vic, 2023).
“The Ancestor, Passing, and Imagination in Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child.” The Bloomsbury Handbook to Toni Morrison edited by Linda Wagner-Martin and Kelly Reames (2023).
“Notes on Decolonising the Curriculum” in BLACKLINES: The Journal of Black British Writing, Issue 1, Summer 2021.
“Grappling with Race: Wrestling and Racial (Mis)representation” in Everything Patterned. Wrestling Resurgence, 2020.
“Grace Jones: Cyborg Memoirist.” Music/Memory/Memoir edited by Robert Edgar, Fraser Mann, Helen Pleasance. New York: Bloomsbury, 2019.
“Parodying Racial Passing in Chappelle’s Show and Key & Peele.” Comedy and the Politics of Representation: Mocking the Weak edited by Helen Davis and Sarah Illot. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
“Grappling and Ga(y)zing: Gender, Sexuality, and Performance in the WWE Debut of Goldust.” Performance and Pro Wrestling. edited by Broderick Chow, Laine Eero, Claire Warden. London: Routledge, 2016.
“Critical Reception: Zora Neale Hurston and the Paradox of Patronage.” Critical Insights: Zora Neale Hurston edited by Sharon Lynette Jones. Ipswich: Salem Press, 2013
Talks
Aberystwyth University | Oct 23 | Research Paper: “On the Edge: Teaching Brandon Taylor's Real Life (2020)”
Northumbria University | June 23 | Invited Speaker: “Pedagogic Edge-Work: Teaching Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock (2021) ”Re-thinking Histories of Popular British Film and Television Conference.
Keele University | April 23 | “On the Edge: Feeling and Affect in Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water (2021) and Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock (2021)”
Harewood House | May 22 | WRoCAH Colloquium Keynote: Creative Practice, Praxis, and the Trinidadian Archive
University of Cambridge | Feb 22 | Academic Paper: “The Revenant Mulatta”
New Writing North Roadshow | Feb 22 | Panellist: Northbound Award and Writing the North
CHASE (Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-east England) | Jan 22 | Decolonising and Indigenous Research Methodologies Workshop: “Adrian Piper and Toi Derricotte”
University of Sussex | Nov 21 | Academic Paper: “Don Draper’s Mammy: Racial Ambiguity in AMC’s Mad Men”
York St John University | Oct 21 | Host: In Conversation with Sophie Williams
Durham University | May 20 | Panellist: Decolonising the Curriculum (w/ Jason Arday, Laura Loyola-Hernandez, and Kayo Chingonyi)
University of York | Feb 19 | Invited Speaker: “Re-imagining Passing: A Feminist Project."
University of Glasgow | Nov 18 | Invited Speaker: “Passing and Its Transatlantic Contexts.”
University of Huddersfield | Oct 18 | Panellist: “Why is my curriculum white?”
Kings College London | Apr 18 | Presenter: British Association of American Studies Conference: “Passing Amid Protest”
UX in Libraries International Conference | Jun 18 | Plenary: “Safe spaces, neutral spaces? Navigating the Library as a Researcher of Colour”
Everybody’s Reading Festival, Leicester | Oct 17 | Panellist: “Performance and Professional Wrestling.”
University of Leeds | Mar 14 | Presenter: RITA Race in the Americas (RITA) Seminar: “Beyond the Passing-For-White Figure in Post-Black Comedy.”"
Durham University | Jan 14 | Invited Speaker: “Using African American Literature in BME Widening Participation.”
University of Manchester | Oct 13 | Invited Speaker (Runnymede Trust): “Breaking into the Academy.”
University of Edinburgh | Sep 13 | Invited Speaker; “Using Pedagogy to Celebrate Diversity.”