Queer@King’s is honoured to host Professor Avi Ben-Zeev to deliver this year’s Derek Jarman Annual Lecture, entitled 'Our Trans* and Queer Stories: Creative Writing as Inquiry, Healing, and Activism'.

Telling our trans* and queer stories gets tricky. On the one hand, it allows us to explore burning questions and make meaning of our lives as individuals and collectives. On the other hand, it can also constrain us—reinforce patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing that no longer serve.

In this talk, Avi Ben-Zeev, an American, London-based queer trans man, Psychology Professor, and author, will discuss how storytelling, in general, and creative writing in particular, enable inquiry, healing, and activism in the face of systemic and growing transphobia and anti-queer sentiments in the UK and US. A central ingredient is cultivating radical joy from living authentically, which aligns with Derek Jarman’s desire to bear witness to his own happiness amid suffering and challenge.

Professor Ben-Zeev will offer theory- and evidence-based psychological and creative writing exercises and tools (e.g. Pennebaker’s writing prompts for well-being) and draw on his over 20-year research programme on stereotyping and social identity threat. He will interweave personal anecdotes from his experiences in San Francisco and London trans* and queer creative spaces—demonstrating how sharing stories helps foster belonging and community (Ben-Zeev & Bailey, 2017; Ben-Zeev, 2024). He will also read from his Polari Prize-longlisted memoir, Calling My Deadname Home: The Trans Bear Diaries (Muswell Press, 2024).

The Derek Jarman Annual Lecture will be introduced by Zeena Feldman, Director of Queer@King's, and conclude with a drinks reception.

About the speaker

Professor Avi Ben-Zeev is the Co-Coordinator of the Mind, Brain, and Behavior Program at San Francisco State University (PhD in Cognitive Psychology, Yale University, MFA in Creative Writing, Birkbeck, University of London). His research has focused on stereotyping, social identity threat, belonging, and a ‘speaking truth’ intervention. He has authored and edited numerous publications, including Complex Cognition (Oxford University Press), published research articles in prestigious journals, such as Psychological Science, and secured an over $17 million grant for diversifying the College of Science and Engineering at San Francisco State University. Ben-Zeev is also an award-winning creative writer. He won the 2024 London Independent Story Prize (LISP) in flash fiction and the UK’s first transgender writing competition. He was shortlisted and highly commended by the 2023 Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, and his co-edited anthology, Trans Homo, was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist. Avi’s literary memoir, Calling My Deadname Home, was published by Muswell Press in 2024 and was longlisted for the 2025 Polari Literary Prize.