Adam Lowe writes about disability, LGBT+ experiences, Lowe is the UK's first
LGBT+ History Month Poet Laureate. He is Editor-in-Chief of
Vada Magazine and Dog Horn Publishing, and works in the publicity department of
Peepal Tree Press. and is chair of the charity Black Gold Arts. He is an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and sits on the management committee for Schools OUT UK, the charity that founded
LGBT+ History Month in the UK. He was formerly Features Editor for
Bent Magazine and Editor of a
speculative fiction magazine called
Polluto. In 2010, he was writer-in-residence at I Love
West Leeds Arts Festival in
Armley, the area where he was raised as the son of
a local councillor. He studied under Madani Younis at Freedom Studios in
Bradford. He was also announced as a finalist for the 22nd Annual
Lambda Literary Awards in the
Transgender Literature category with his novella
Troglodyte Rose (later, a selection from the book would be a
Wattpad featured story getting over 190,000 reads). In 2011, Lowe was writer on attachment at
West Yorkshire Playhouse, and partnered with composer Nikki Franklin for
Leeds Lieder+ at
Leeds College of Music, before the two collaborated on a new work, "Mary", for the
BBC Singers. In 2012, his
pamphlet Precocious (Fruit Bruise Press) was a reader nomination for the
Guardian First Book Prize, which the publication described as "A vivid picture of emotions, deeply felt, but with a clear-eyed view of the ways we humans live, love and sometimes betray". He also had a residency at
Zion Arts Centre. The final poem was performed by the
National Lottery Draw Show's Voice of the Balls
Alan Dedicoat at the National Lottery Plot in the Olympic Park on 3 September 2012. Lowe rounded the year off with inclusion in
MTV Books'
Chorus: A Literary Mixtape, edited by
Saul Williams and Dufflyn Lammers. In 2013, he was announced as one of 10 Black and Asian "advanced poets" for
The Complete Works II (founded by
Bernardine Evaristo) with
Mona Arshi,
Jay Bernard,
Kayo Chingonyi,
Rishi Dastidar,
Edward Doegar,
Inua Ellams,
Sarah Howe,
Eileen Pun and
Warsan Shire, which resulted in the anthology
Ten: The New Wave, edited by
Karen McCarthy Woolf. He was mentored on the programme by
Patience Agbabi. where Lowe was given as an example of "the non-conformist and boundary-breaking approach to writing in Leeds". In 2014, he toured his
solo show,
Ecstasies, which began at
Contact Theatre's Queer Contact. The play received a four-star review in
Theatre Bubble, describing the play as "a comment on the real life app,
Grindr, where users meet for sex and chance encounters. The intensity of the meetings that can only be virtual and therefore 'not real'".
The Guardian referred to the short play, in published form, as "a fine playlet". In 2018–9, he featured in the
British Library's
Windrush Stories exhibition, performing a poem based on the
Lord's Prayer. In 2019, his poem 'Bone Railroad', about slavery and the
Middle Passage was selected as Poem of the Week by
The Yorkshire Times. He also joined drag performers, including
Cheddar Gorgeous and
Anna Phylactic, in
a protest against the state visit of Donald Trump in London. In 2021, he contributed a poem called "Writing Myself in History" and performed a lip sync of
Regina Spektor's "Us" for
Manchester Museum, as part of Pride Month. In June 2022, Lowe performed at the
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery in
Exeter with
Mona Arshi,
Victoria Adukwei Bulley,
Fred D'Aguiar, Jennifer Lee Tsai,
Shivanee Ramlochan,
Jacob Sam-La Rose,
John Siddique, Yomi Sode and
Yusra Warsama as part of the
My Words collaboration with the Museum of Colour, curated by Melanie Abrahams. The poets were accompanied by live music and vocals from Randolph Matthews. As part of the
My Words programme, Lowe also contributed a poem called "
Seasoning" to the Museum of Colour, inspired by a set of chains used in the
transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans. In October 2022, he edited the anthology
The World Reimagined, featuring 30 poets, including
Anthony Joseph,
Benjamin Zephaniah,
Dorothea Smartt,
John Agard,
Karen McCarthy Woolf,
Kadija Sesay,
Khadijah Ibrahiim,
Malika Booker,
Marvin Thompson,
Otis Mensah,
Raymond Antrobus,
Shara McCallum,
Shivanee Ramlochan,
Tanya Shirley and others. The book was published by The World Reimagined, an arts education charity which "exists to transform our understanding of the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans". In December 2022, Lowe co-authored the scientific paper "What Primary Care Practitioners Need to Know about the New
NICE Guideline for
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in Adults" in the journal
Healthcare, writing as a lay person with
lived experience of ME/CFS
. In 2023,
Peepal Tree Press published Lowe's debut (full-length) poetry collection,
Patterflash, as "[a] collection [which] connects the poet as a wry, humane observer of
the scene, particularly as conducted in Manchester, and the persona of 'Adam Lowe' as both actor in and narrator of his own dramas, who performs, exults and sometimes suffers in a wide range of guises and disguises." The collection includes several poems in Polari. In 2024,
Patterflash was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. == Literary reception ==