Marjorie Lotfi Readings & Workshops
Winner of the James Berry Poetry Prize 2021
Winner of the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection 2024 (Forward Prizes)
Shortlisted for Poetry Book of the Year (Saltire Book Awards 2024)
Longlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize 2025
Poetry Book Society Special Commendation
‘Lotfi’s imagistically rich debut collection moves from her childhood in Iran, where her family were uprooted by the revolution, to her youth in America and her current home in Scotland … Again and again her radiant language turns over the loss of family intimacy and identity caused by political upheaval and violence…’ – Rebecca Tamás, The Guardian
Marjorie Lotfi’s award-winning first full collection The Wrong Person to Ask is a book of two halves, each a meditation on the idea of home, both the places we start and end up in our lives. Spanning a childhood in Iran dislocated by revolution, through years as a young woman in America, to her current home in Scotland, these poems ask what it means to come from somewhere else, what we carry with us when we leave, and how we land in a new place and finally come to rest.
Marjorie Lotfi was one of the three winners of the inaugural James Berry Poetry Prize in 2021, and her first book-length collection, The Wrong Person to Ask (October 2023) was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. It won the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection 2024, one of the Forward Prizes. It was shortlisted for Poetry Book of the Year in the Saltire Book Awards 2024 and longlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize 2025 for a distinctive first volume of poetry in English.
Marjorie gave pre-publication readings at Edinburgh International Book Festival and Wigtown Book Festival, and gave launch readings at Portobello Bookshop in Edinburgh and at Berwick Literary Festial in October 2023. She frequently hosts events as well as taking part in them. She has hosted many events at Edinburgh International Book Festival.
In June 2024 Marjorie Lotfi was named one of the writers chosen for ILX10: Rising Stars of UK Writing, a selection of ten early-career writers based in the UK whose work has the potential to speak to and engage with global literary audiences. The International Literature Exchange is a programme run by the National Centre for Writing.
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Marjorie Lotfi and Gerda Stevenson were guests on episode 8 of the Lantern Scottish Poetry Podcast, which was released on 18 July 2024. They were in conversation with hosts Kathleen Jamie, Scotland’s Makar, and Alistair Heather. Marjorie read and introduced three poems from The Wrong Person to Ask.
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/podcast/lantern-scottish-poetry-hosted-by-kathleen-jamie/
An in-depth audio interview with Marjorie Lotfi went online on the Royal Literary Fund’s WritersMosaic website in June 2024. She was in conversation with historian Colin Grant, and read several poems from The Wrong Person to Ask. Also featured is an essay ‘On being both (and neither)’, written and narrated by Marjorie. Listen here: https://writersmosaic.org.uk/people/marjorie-lotfi/
In addition to the interview, a forty-minute autobiographical essay by Marjorie Lotfi went online on WritersMosaic website on 17 July 2024. Narrated by Marjorie Lotfi, with a text version also available. She was talking about growing up in Iran, fleeing to the US, moving to Britain and eventually settling in Scotland.
https://writersmosaic.org.uk/what-we-leave-we-carry/marjorie-lotfi/
Four powerful poems from The Wrong Person to Ask were featured online in the autumn 2023 issue of BooksfromScotland to mark the book's publication in October 2023.
https://booksfromscotland.com/2023/10/the-wrong-person-to-ask/
Marjorie Lotfi's interview with the Forward Prizes is available on their website here.
For more interviews, reviews & poem features for The Wrong Person to Ask, see: https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/news?articleid=1339
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MARJORIE'S TABLE FORWARD PRIZE WORKSHOPS
A series of ten online workshops discussing the work of the Forward Prize 2026 shortlisted poets are being held from 31 August to 11 September 2026. These inaugural Forward Prize Marjorie's Table writing workshops are hosted by Marjorie Lotfi, who won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection for her 2024 debut The Wrong Person to Ask.
The titles discussed include Tishani Doshi's fifth collection Egrets, While War, shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection, and Roshni Gallagher's debut Even the Trees, published by Bloodaxe Books in September 2026, shortlisted for the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection. Even the Trees is a joint winner of the James Berry Poetry Prize, as was Marjorie Lotfi's The Wrong Person to Ask.
Tickets: £40 for all ten workshops. Full details & booking here.
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FORTHCOMING EVENTS
A piece by Marjorie Lotfi in which she explores the relationship between poetry, exile, the refugee experience and political resistance was published in The Scotsman on 5 September 2026 ahead of her two WritersMosaic events at Wigtown Book Festival on 26 and 27 September. Available online here.
Saturday 26 September, 12pm
Wigtown Book Festival - What We Leave We Carry: Voices of Migration to Britain
Sacred Heart Church, 6 Chapel Ct, Wigtown DG8 9ET
Colin Grant, a son of Jamaican migrants, has travelled the country with writers from WritersMosaic, listening to stories of migration - foundational tales of arriving in a new land, along with rarely spoken tales of love and loss. Grant is joined by storytellers from this oral history, sharing the secrets of their migrant songs and objects: the poet Marjorie Lotfi who first fled Iran as a child during the Iranian revolution carrying a lunchbox filled with feathers, shells and tiny notebooks, and Clementine Ewokolo Burnley, a Cameroonian psychotherapist and poet who arrived as a student in 1980s Glasgow inspired by 'Kung Fu Fighting'. In a time when toxic debates about migration and belonging, What We Leave We Carry is a chance to listen to Britain - in all its richness and complexity. Sponsored by WritersMosaic.
Marjorie Lotfi was a joint winner of the inaugural James Berry Poetry Prize in 2021. She also won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection for her 2024 debut The Wrong Person to Ask.
Clementine Ewokolo Burnley is a joint winner of the 2024 James Berry Poetry Prize. Her debut Belling the Leopard is published by Bloodaxe in September 2026.
Tickets: £9 (concessions available) - more details and booking here.
Sunday 27 September, 6pm
Wigtown Book Festival - Sana Nassari, Marjorie Lotfi & Shara Atashi: Iranian Women's Voices
Join this evening of poetry, film and Iranian music, presented by WritersMosaic, with writer and translator Shara Atashi, poet author Sana Nassari, and poet Marjorie Lotfi. The event features the extraordinary documentary photography of Hengameh Golestan, whose work captures women protesting the oppression of the Iranian authorities. Sponsored by WritersMosaic.
Tickets: £9 (concessions available) - more details and booking here.
Marjorie Lotfi: 'The Hebridean Crab Apple'
Marjorie Lotfi was filmed on the Galloway coast performing her poem ‘The Hebridean Crab Apple’ from her 2023 collection The Wrong Person to Ask. Directed by Savannah Acquah, this film was released on 23 April 2025 as the first in the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation's eight-film series UK Global Majority Poets on Film 2025, created with WritersMosaic to expand the reach of four award-winning, global majority poets through the visual culture of film.
PAST EVENTS
James Berry Poetry Prize Winners' Reading, Thursday 9 November 2023, 7pm, Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts
Marjorie Lotfi joined fellow James Berry Prize winner Kaycee Hill for this special event at Newcastle University on 9 November 2023, hosted by Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley and poet and director of the Newcastle Poetry Festival Theresa Muñoz. Their readings were followed by a Q&A, with Neil, Theresa and the audience asking the questions.
The James Berry Poetry Prize was the UK’s first poetry prize offering both expert mentoring and book publication for young or emerging poets of colour. Organised by NCLA with Bloodaxe Books, and supported by special funding from Arts Council England, the prize was launched in April 2021. Marjorie and Kaycee were joint winners along with Yvette Siegert, whose debut will be published at a later date.
The second James Berry Poetry Prize was announced at this event in November 2023. The shortlisted poets for the James Berry Prize 2024 read at a special online event on Wednesday 20 November 2024 at which the three joint winners were revealed. Details here. Available to watch on YouTube.
Debut collections by the winners of the James Berry Poetry Prize 2024 were published by Bloodaxe in September 2026. They are Clementine Ewokolo Burnley's Belling the Leopard, Roshni Gallagher's Even the Trees, and Nadine El-Enany's Pelican Daughter.
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Marjorie Lotfi on Rattlecast #74
Marjorie Lotfi introduces her work and reads from her pamphlet Refuge in this Rattlecast edition livestreamed on 5 January 2021. She was interviewed from her home in Edinburgh by Timothy Green from San Bernadino, California. Her section runs from 3:55 to 1:04:52.
Marjorie reads some poems which will be published in The Wrong Person to Ask, including 'Gift' (now called 'Mama Bozorg') and 'The gun in its holster'. She speaks about her experiences of having to flee Iran, of growing up in the US and finally moving to Scotland.
[20 July 2023]
