Shamshad Khan

Shamshad Khan was conceived in Karachi and born in Britain. She studied Biology and animal behaviour and qualified to teach science at secondary school level. She currently lives in Manchester. She is treasurer of Commonwor writing development and publishing company and was Literature Adviser to North West Arts Board. Her published works include a short story, The Woman and the Chair, published by Virago in 1994. Her poetry appears in a number of anthologies including Flame, Poetry of Rebellion, The Firepeople, Bittersweet, Healing Strategies for Women at War, Gargoyle, Longman's GCSE Poems for your Pocket, Velocity and Redbeck Press' anthology of British South Asian poets. Shamshad is co-editor of an anthology of black women’s poetry (Crocus, 1999). Shamshad has had her work broadcast on local and national radio, featuring in the Bradford Festival Radio, GMR and Radio 4's Love Thang and Woman's Hour, Radio 4. Her performances have included the Nia Centre, The Green Room, Band on the Wall (Manchester), Unity Theatre (Liverpool), Apples & Snakes and at Dingwalls collaboration with New York musicians via ISDN link. She has performed in English and Urdu at Oldham's mother tongue conference, been commissioned by Manchester's Conference on Integrated Transport and Trafford City Council, performed her poetry using soundtracks, contemporary dancers and musicians and performed as an extra with the Paris Opera Ballet in La Bayadere at Salford's Lowry. Shamshad has run creative writing workshops in schools and for Asian women and youth groups. In autumn 1999 she worked with Refugee Support Network, facilitating creative writing workshops for a group of refugees from Kosovo, Kurdistan and Somalia culminating in a performance of poetry and prose. She has also written and performed her own one-person poetic shows including Hard Cut and Megalomanic.