Gabriel Baker

Gabriel has been a performance storyteller for over a decade. They bring their practice-based expertise to their academic work.

His main areas of expertise are Transgender Studies; Creative Writing; oral storytelling; performance skills, and audience interaction.

Their Creative Writing experience spans spoken word poetry; comedy sets; long- and short-form prose; magazine articles; copywriting; monologue; scriptwriting, and parody lyric.

Gabriel Baxter-Baker aka þ (Thorn) is a Postgraduate Researcher in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia.

þ is a performer and writer specialising in fiercely tender revolution; wild, queer love, and finding divinity in the monstrous. They’re a Purbeck Valley slam champion, Hammer & Tongue veteran, and have been crowned the ‘monarch of the extended metaphor’. A hedonist queer with more genders than brain cells, they bring decadent drag, drunken tales of debauched gods, and silly sausage energy to every smouldering performance. They’re the mastermind behind Tit For Tat Cabaret fundraisers; Lighthouse Theatre’s Lucid Cabaret, and Poole Pride’s Come On Out Cabaret.

Their poetry can be found in the Seaside Gothic and Breaking the Static anthologies; they have had short stories published in Extraterrestrials Anthology and the UEA Creative Writing MA Anthology, and their exploratory short story collection, Genre-fluid, is available from all major ebook retailers.

Gabriel was on the editorial board for the UEA Creative Writing MA Anthology, and writes for Dorset Magazine and Queer AF.

Gabriel’s research interests include transgender folktales, oral storytelling, and community narrativising within grassroots performance spaces. Their PhD thesis focuses on the depiction of gender transgression and transformation in folktales told by transgender performers. Fan Studies, Gender Studies and Speculative Fiction are also strong interests. They will be presenting at CHASE’s 2025 Autumn Encounters event.

Gabriel is particularly interested in teaching Creative Writing, oral storytelling, and performance skills.

Over the last five years, they have developed and facilitated workshops in Creative Writing; storytelling; performance; storytelling for wellbeing, and gender playfulness. He has collaborated with Artful Scribe; Lighthouse, Poole's Centre for the Arts; Dorset Volunteer Centre, and Acorns Day Centre to deliver workshops to diverse audiences, including adults with Learning Differences; elders with dementia, and trans youth.