Hana Riaz is a London-born and based short story writer. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Geography at King’s College London investigating the impacts of gentrification on psychosocial health of young people in South London. She holds an MSc in Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies from The London School of Economics and a BA in Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Hana is the founder and director of The Body Narratives Ltd, a platform and community organisation that supports the development of women of colour creatives. Hana has also worked in higher education as an equalities, diversity and inclusion specialist on disparities in educational outcomes and sexual harassment.

She is committed to and inspired by the development of wholehearted communities and sustainable approaches to cities, living and loving.

Hana was  awarded a Grant for the Arts by the Arts Council in 2016 to work on her first short story collection ‘Love and other important things’.  In 2019, her short story ‘Love Ocean’ was long listed for the London Short Story Prize. She was also longlisted for the London Short Story Prize in 2015. She was shortlisted for The Asian Writer Short Story Prize 2018. Her short stories have been published by Peepal Tree Press, Stirling Press, Kingston University Press, The Good Journal and the As/Us Journal.

Hana seeks to tell stories that occupy the liminal lives and spaces of multicultural Britain. Her short stories explore themes of lovelessness, loss, addiction, mental health, dissonance, dislocation and re-memory present in the banal and ordinary.

Hana’s nonfiction work and essays have been published widely, including The Guardian, The Feminist Wire and Ceasefire Magazine. She has been invited to panels and presented papers on race, gender, popular culture, wellbeing, mental health, literature and the arts and identity. She has appeared on Al Jazeera’s Head to Head, Women of the World Festival (2014) and presented a paper on gender, race and fundamentalism for Women Against Fundamentalism (May 2014, SOAS/University of East London).