I am an established poet, tutor and mentor living in Suffolk. My first full-length collection, The Anatomy of Structures, was published by Flambard Press in 2010. My second collection, Her Birth (Carcanet, 2013), was shortlisted for the 2013 Forward Prize for Best Collection, won the Poetry category in the East Anglian Book Awards 2013, and in 2015 was shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Writing and the Portico Prize for Literature. My second pamphlet Carousel, a collaboration with the photographer Chris Routledge, was published by Guillemot Press in 2018 and placed in the 2019 Michael Marks Awards. My third full-length collection, Girl, was published with Carcanet in 2019 and shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards 2019 and Highly Commended in the Forward Prizes, 2019. I was selected for the Poetry Book Society’s prestigious Next Generation Poets in 2014 and am the winner of the Sylvia Plath Prize in 2022. My latest collection, Latch, was published with Carcanet in 2023.

I have an MA in Creative Writing from Cardiff University and a PhD by Publication from the University of East Anglia. I was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge 2020-22 and at the University of Suffolk 2022-23. I have taught creative writing in various institutions for over twenty years. I was a lecturer in Creative Writing at Liverpool John Moores University and their Creative Writing Fellow from 2018-19. I taught on the Masters programme in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia from 2019-20. I have run poetry workshops for Arvon, The Poetry School and The Poetry Society. I currently teach creative writing for Writer’s Centre (Norwich) in association with the University of East Anglia.

As well as tutoring, I run my own successful poetry mentoring business, established in 2014. I work on a one-to-one basis with poets on their manuscripts, helping them to feel confident about their poetry and reach publication. Many of my mentees have gone on to achieve considerable success including being shortlisted for major, international poetry awards. 

I am dedicated to my own writing practice and like to push myself in different directions. As a passionate advocate of interdisciplinary projects, I am a regular contributor to the world of medical humanities, speaking at conferences nationwide and undertaking commissions. I have been involved in numerous collaborations with medics, scientists, and artists, most recently ‘Nomenclature’, a project I co-devised with established scientist, Prof. Rebecca Goss (no relation but interesting connection!) celebrating the stories of mothers working in science. We have been able to secure seed funding from The Wellcome Trust and an Inclusion and Diversity Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry.