Date: Saturday 25th April 2026

Venue: Watershed (W3)

Time: 18:00 - 19:15

Tickets: £8 (£10 solidarity, £5 concessions)

✅ BSL Interpreted
✅ Captioned
✅ Live Streamed (book a ‘Live Stream Ticket’ at checkout)

✅ All Lyra Fest venues are wheelchair accessible. Access Information Pack available at www.lyrafest.com.

Nikita Gill: Hekate & Poems of Mythology

Reading/Performance

In this magical evening of poetry and mythology, Nikita Gill reads from her spellbinding new verse novel Hekate, a reimagining of the forgotten origins of the goddess of witchcraft. Exploring themes of displacement, feminine rage, and the revolutionary potential of embracing one's own power, this goddess narrative resonates with the same emotional depth and feminist power that has drawn 850,000 followers to her work.

With support readings from Rosie Garland (This Is How I Fight) and Emilie Jelinek (The Sky Around My Father) whose new poetry collections also respond in different ways to themes of mythology and identity. 

Artist Bios:

Nikita Gill:

Nikita Gill is a British-Indian poet, playwright, writer and illustrator who has written and curated eight volumes of poetry, and uses social media to engage her audience of 850,000 followers on Instagram, one of the most popular poets on the platform. 

The bestselling poet delivers a fiery, absorbing retelling of the myth of Hekate, an orphan girl who grows up in the underworld and goes on to become the goddess of witchcraft, necromancy and darkness. A propulsive, electrifying and enraging retelling in verse of the life of** Greek goddess Hekate, child of war turned all-powerful goddess of witchcraft and necromancy.

Rosie Garland:

Rosie Garland has a passion for language nurtured by public libraries. An award-winning poet, novelist and short story writer, she is frontwoman for post-punk band The March Violets. Poetry collection What Girls do the Dark (Nine Arches Press) was shortlisted for the Polari Prize & latest collection This Is How I Fight was Observer Poetry Book of the Month.

Her four historical novels include The Fates, a queer retelling of Greek myth & short fiction in Your Sons & Your Daughters are Beyond (Fly on the Wall). Val McDermid has named her one of the UK’s most compelling LGBT+ writers, & in 2023 she was made Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.

Emilie Jelinek:

Emilie Jelinek won the 2024 Mslexia Women’s Poetry Pamphlet Competition judged by Imtiaz Dharker with her second pamphlet, The Sky Around My Father (Bloodaxe Books/Mslexia, 2025), following her debut, Wing Formula (Against the Grain Press, 2023). Her poems have been published in Ambit, 14 magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry London, Resurgence, Under the Radar and Southword: New International Writing, among others. She has been placed in various competitions and won second prize in both the Winchester Poetry Competition in 2023 judged by Zaffar Kunial and the Wells International Poetry Competition in 2024 judged by Anthony Joseph, where she also received the Hilly Cansdale Award. She was awarded a distinction for her MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University in 2023. She grew up in Belgium and France and has spent her career working for international organisations in Russia, Afghanistan, Haiti, Myanmar and West Africa, returning to the UK in 2014. She lives in Bath.

Part of Lyra – Bristol Poetry Festival 2026

#LyraFest

Filters:

Live Event ✓
Online/Streamed ✓
BSL Interpreted ✓
Captioned ✓

Entry requirements: 16+, any under 18s accompanied by 21+ adult 1:1 ratio — Read more — Read less