Lucy Holme

Originally from Kent, Lucy Holme has lived in Cork, Ireland for well over a decade. A former private yacht chief stewardess and wine sommelier, her first poetry chapbook Temporary Stasis from Broken Sleep Books was described as a ‘haunting exploration of the feminine and the marine’ and was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Award. Her recently published nonfiction essay collection Blue Diagonals was described by The Stinging Fly’s nonfiction editor Roisin Kiberd as ‘a truly kaleidoscopic memoir, told with nostalgia, wit and poetic intensity’. Her work features in PN Review, The Manchester Review, Poetry London, Poetry Ireland Review, The London Magazine, Southword, Banshee and The Stinging Fly amongst others. She has been shortlisted for The London Magazine Poetry Award, The Brotherton Prize, The Mairtín Crawford Award, The Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition, Southword’s Literary Essay Competition, The Wales Poetry Prize and won the Southword Editor’s Award and the Cúirt New Writing Prize for Poetry 2024.  She is currently undergoing a PhD at University College Cork where she also teaches creative nonfiction and poetry and is currently working on her first novel.