Meet The Authors On BookBar’s Panel At Chelsea Arts Festival

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This intimate panel celebrates some of 2026’s best new writing

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Meet The Authors On BookBar’s Panel At Chelsea Arts Festival

Marcia Hutchinson, Jem Calder, Sufiyaan Salam: these three authors may have only published one novel a piece, but all are already award-winning. It makes perfect sense that Chrissy Ryan – founder of one of London’s best beloved bookshops – would select them for her inaugural ‘BookBar Introduces’ panel at Chelsea Arts Festival this weekend: she has a knack for spotting talented authors before they hit the mainstream.

Stepping out of its Chelsea branch and into the nearby Saatchi Gallery for one afternoon only, read on for everything you need to know ahead of BookBar Introduces at Chelsea Arts Festival – a must-visit event for book lovers this weekend.

The Saatchi Gallery is one of Chelsea Arts Festival's venues.

The event will be held at Saatchi Gallery.

What?

Founded by Chrissy Ryan, BookBar is an independent London bookshop that first opened its doors in Islington in 2021, followed by a second branch in Chelsea in 2025. Combining reading with socialising, both bookshops are teeming with new tomes, while also housing ample space to sit and socialise, with drinks, from morning coffee to evening cocktails, served from the bar.

This is how BookBar initially generated its community, something it feeds through its hot-ticket events. There are music nights, readings, wine tastings, DJ nights, dating events and more. The author talks are another draw: everyone from Bernadine Evaristo, Lily King, Eleanor Catton, David Szalay and Virginia Evans have spoken at a BookBar event – and events sell out fast.

It’s time to snap up your tickets to this special Chelsea Arts Festival event, then: BookBar Introduces brings three buzzy debut authors – Jem Calder, Marcia Hutchinson and Sufiyaan Salam – to the Saatchi Gallery for a must-see in-conversation, chaired by Chrissy herself.

Who?

The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson book jacket

Selected as one of the Observer’s Best New Novelists for 2025, Bradford-born writer Marcia Hutchinson published her solo debut novel The Mercy Step in July 2025. A Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlistee whisking us back to Bradford 1962, the novel is loosely based on Marcia’s own youth, centring on Mercy, a young girl living in an unwelcoming world who dreams of a better future. Caught in the grip of family, faith and fear, Mercy learns that she must act in order to set herself free.

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Cambridge-born Jem Calder published his debut short story collection, Reward System, in 2022, and his work has been published in both The Stinging Fly and Granta magazines. Known for his acidly cynical millennial perspective, Calder’s debut novel, I Want You To Be Happy, followed in 2026 and became an instant hit. Wrapped in a cover emblazoned with a worldcloud of the moment – bookshop tote, WFH, pay in three, oat milk, natural wine, QR code menu – we switch between the perspectives of thirty-something copywriter Chuck and the 12 years younger aspiring poet barista Joey who, after they meet in a club, being to imagine new lives for themselves away from their dire circumstances.

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Finally, Sufiyaan Salam completes the panel. Winner of the #Merky Books New Writers’ Prize and earning Salam a spot on the Observer‘s 2026 list of Best New Writers, Wimmy Road Boyz was published in May 2026 and follows three twenty-something British-Pakistani men hurtling through a wild night out in Manchester. Told in mostly lowercase slangy Gen Z vernacular, it’s a blistering tale of masculinity, violence and love told over the course of one surreal night that sears through the modern moment.

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