the87press was co-founded by South Asian poets Kashif Sharma-Patel and Azad Ashim Sharma with initial design input from architect Devin Maisuria and graphic design studio s-designs. Established on principles of equity, (late) modernism, anti-colonialism, anti-racism, environmentalism, and social justice, the87press quickly became the London home for countercultural, hybrid, and experimental works of poetry, prose, and non-fiction from racialised, neurodivergent, queer, and working class authors. the87press ascended to Arts Council England's National Portfolio in 2023 and added photographer Sopo Ramischwili and videographer Aisheshek Magauina to their core team alongside an advisory board full of publishing industry expects and pedagogical practitioners to support a new public facing direction for the press. As of 2025, the87press is distributed in the UK and EU by Inpress and in the US and Canada by Wesleyan University Press, printing in small batches and combining environmentally conscious materials with bespoke design, and manifests a non-profit ethos as a Community Interest Company.
Core Team
Azad Ashim Sharma
Director and Editor
Azad Ashim Sharma is the director of the87press and serves as poetry editor at Philosophy and Global Affairs and the CLR James Journal; he is also the commissioning editor of The Hythe Review. He is a PhD Candidate in English and Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of three poetry collections, most recently, Boiled Owls (Nightboat Books, 2024) which was shortlisted for the Jhalak Poetry Prize. His second collection Ergastulum: Vignettes of Lost Time (Broken Sleep Books, 2022) was the recipient of the Caribbean Philosophical Association’s Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Outstanding Book Award. In July 2025, Azad was inaugurated as the Poet Laureate of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He lives in South London and is currently working on a novel and his fourth collection of poetry.
Kashif Sharma-Patel
Company Secretary and Editor-in-Chief
Kashif Sharma-Patel is a London-based writer, poet, and editor at the87press. Kashif has written across music, literature, and art for The Poetry Project Newsletter, Verso Blog and Los Angeles Review of Books. Pamphlets include relief I willed it (Gong Farm, 2021), fragments on mutability (Earthbound Press, 2020), and Suburban Finesse, co-authored with Ashwani Sharma and Azad Ashim Sharma (Sad Press, 2021). Their debut collection is due in 2024 from Broken Sleep Books. They run a newsletter called culture hawker at kashifsp.substack.com.
Aisheshek Magauina
Creative Manager
Aisheshek Magauina is a South london based comedian, writer, and core team at the87press. At the87press she is a Creative Manager, with a focus on videography, video editing, and social media.
Sopo Ramischwili
Head of Publicity and Distribution
Sopo is a South London based photographer from a mixed West Asian background. Their work focuses on music, fashion, and culture. soporamischwili.com
Her work at the87press covers book publicity and distribution but also involves marketing, social media management, event management, and various administrative tasks.
Board of Advisors
Shura Davey Joseph-Gruner
Chair of the Board and Education and Accessibility Advisor
Shura Davey Joseph-Gruner is an artist, educator, and researcher from London. Shura's arts practice includes photography, digital media, and curation. Most recently, he contributed a digital artwork to 'Echoes of Solidarity' by the Afro Middle East Centre in South Africa in 2022. He also co-devised 'Neurodiversions', a series of immersive exhibitions established in 2019 that explore the production of culture and knowledge by neurodivergent people.
As an educator, Shura's specialisms are in accessible and critical pedagogies and he teaches across the London College of Communication's Design School and in the University of the Arts London's flagship Inclusive Practice Unit. Previously, he has also worked in 1:1 support for disabled students at Chelsea and Camberwell Colleges of Art, Central Saint Martins, and BRIT School.
Sarah Shin
Publishing Strategy Advisor
Sarah Shin is a writer, publisher and curator whose work includes making books, texts, gardens, games, scents, spaces, portals and practices. She is a founder of Ignota, a creative publishing and curatorial house exploring consciousness, technology and healing; Silver Press, the feminist publisher; New Suns, a curatorial project that began as a literary festival at the Barbican Centre; and Standard Deviation, a spatial practice exploring the coincidence of psychic, geometric and inhabited space through methods including storytelling, dreaming, memory, architecture and digital processes.
Daniella Valz Gen
Curatorial and Pedagogical Advisor
Daniella Valz Gen, a poet, artist, and oracle, explores intersections among languages, cultures, and value systems with a focus on embodiment and ritual. With over fifteen years of international experience, their work has been featured in exhibitions, performances, and residencies worldwide. They authored "Subversive Economies" (PSS 2018) and contributed to various art journals. As the 2018 writer in residency for Serpentine’s ‘Writing the City, Language & Power’, and through projects like "(Be)longing" in 2019, they investigate migration and ecology through site-specific interventions. In October 2022, Valz Gen participated in the OrganizmoBloom residency in La Urbana, Colombia, witnessing a reclamation of traditions. Engaged with not/nowhere and the87press's advisory board, they promote inclusive publishing practices and alternative pedagogies.
Danah Abdulla
Design and Financial Advisor
Danah Abdulla is a Palestinian-Canadian designer, educator and researcher interested in new narratives and practices in design that push the disciplinary boundaries and definitions of the discipline. She is Programme Director of Graphic Design at Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Colleges of Arts (University of the Arts London). She has previously held positions at Brunel University London and London College of Communication (University of the Arts London). Danah obtained her Ph.D. in Design from Goldsmiths, University of London and is a founding member of the Decolonising Design platform. In 2010, she founded Kalimat Magazine, an independent, nonprofit publication about Arab thought and culture. Her research focuses on decolonising design, possibilities of design education, design culture(s), the politics of design, publishing, and social design. www.dabdulla.com
Joe Luna
Editorial Advisor
Joe Luna’s books of poetry include Astroturf and Other Poems (2013), Ten Zones (2014), Air Hunger (2018), and Development Hell (2020). He lives and works in Brighton.
Gurdeep Mattu
Trade and Distribution Advisor
Gurdeep Mattu is a publisher and the author of Sons and Fascination (Paperbooks, 2011) as well as several pamphlets. He works as Deputy Manager (Publishing Operations) at the House of Commons and has held senior roles at Bloomsbury, Continuum and Rowman and Littlefield. His poetic influences include T. S. Eliot, Walt Whitman, H.D. and William Carlos Williams. Gurdeep is working on his second novel, "Sister Feelings Call" and blogs at gurdeepmattu.wordpress.com
Rhoni Blankenhorn
Creative Partnerships Advisor
Rhoni Blankenhorn is a Filipina American writer. Her manuscript, Rooms for the Dead and the Not Yet, won the Trio Award. A Sewanee Scholar, Saltonstall Fellow, and Tin House alum, her words can be found or are forthcoming in Narrative, AAWW, Couplet, Honey Literary, Hyperallergic, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA in poetry and translation at Columbia University, and works as an editor, educator, and creative strategist.
Portrait by Antonio Escalante
