I grew up in Nottingham, then lived in East London for seven years before moving North West. I’ve lived in the Lake District for the best part of 16 years.

I write poetry and nonfiction, with a focus on place, nature, and disability.

My debut poetry collection Basic Nest Architecture was published in February 2017 by Seren, followed in October 2021 by my second collection Much With Body, a PBS Winter 2021 recommendation and Laurel Prize longlistee, supported by a 2020 Northern Writers Award and a residency at Cove Park.

My biography, Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth (Saraband, 2021) is the first to focus on Dorothy’s later life and illness, and place her into Disability History.

My memoir exploring place, belonging and chronic illness, Some Of Us Just Fall: on nature and not getting better, was published by Sceptre in summer 2023.

I’ve taught English and Creative Writing at QMUL, Lancaster University, and the Universities of Strathclyde and Cumbria. I hold a doctorate on Romantic legacies and the Lake District, conducted under the AHRC Landscape and Environment project, in collaboration with The Wordsworth Trust and Lancaster University.

In 2019 I co-founded the Open Mountain initiative at Kendal Mountain Festival, which sought to recentre voices currently at the margins of outdoor, mountain and nature writing. I have an essay on rain and chronic illness in the groundbreaking anthology Moving Mountains: Writing Nature through Illness and Disability (Footnote: 2023). 

In 2022 I became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.