Clare Shaw Author & Editor

Clare Shaw was born in Burnley in 1972. She has published three collections with Bloodaxe, Straight Ahead (2006), which was shortlisted for the Glen Dimplex New Writers’ Award for Poetry and attracted a Forward Prize Highly Commended for Best Single Poem; Head On (2012), which according to the Times Literary Supplement is ‘fierce, memorable and visceral’; and her latest collection, Flood (2018). She is a Royal Literary Fellow, and a regular tutor for the Writing Project, the Poetry School, the Wordsworth Trust and the Arvon Foundation. She also works as a mental health trainer and consultant and has taught and published widely in the field, including Our Encounters with Self-Injury (eds. Baker, Biley and Shaw, PCCS 2013) and Otis Doesn’t Scratch (PCCS 2015), a unique storybook resource for children who live with self-injury. Clare lives in Hebden Bridge with her daughter and their two pet rats; she enjoys rock climbing and wild swimming in cold and beautiful places.