The Writers of Wales Database

SAMPSON, FIONA

fionasampson@yahoo.co.uk

Fiona Sampson is a poet and editor. She grew up in West Wales and was schooled in Aberystwyth. She was first a concert violinist, then studied at the Universities of Oxford, where she won the Newdigate Prize, and Nijmegan. Her pioneering residencies in health care, a field in which she still consults internationally, led to her doctorate on the social roles of poetry.

Widely published as reviewer and essayist, she has also written for radio and public art commission. She has been published and broadcast in fifteen languages. Awards include the 2003 Zlaten Prsten for international writing (Macedonian Foundation for Culture and Sciences), a Hawthornden Fellowship, and awards from the Arts Councils of England and Wales, and the Society of Authors. Her collection Common Prayer (Carcanet, 2007) was short-listed for the T.S. Eliot Prize and her edited title A Century of Poetry Review (Carcanet, 2009) was a PBS Special Commendation. Her work was short-listed in the Best Individual Poem category of the Forward Prize in 2006. Her latest book Rough Music (Carcanet, 2010) was short-listed for both the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes.

Fiona was AHRC Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University 2002-5 and CAPITAL Fellow in Creativity at the University of Warwick 2007-8. She gave the 2010 Newcastle Poetry Lectures under the title 'Music Lessons'. Fiona is the Editor of Poetry Review; and of Orient Express, a journal of contemporary writing from Enlargement Europe. She also regularly contributes to The Guardian, The Irish Times and other periodicals. In 2009 she received a Cholmondeley Award and became a Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature. Her next two books have been commissioned by Chatto & Windus: a critical map of contemporary British poetry, Beyond the Lyric, due to be published in autumn 2012, and her forthcoming collection, Coleshill, out in January 2013. Fiona is a Member of Academi.

Selected Publications:
Picasso’s Men (Phoenix Press, 1994)
The Healing Word (The Poetry Society, 1999)
Folding the Real (Seren, 2001)
Writing in Health Care: Towards a Theoretical Framework: A Scientific Essay in Policy Studies (F.R. Sampson, 2001)
Travel Diary (Knixevna Akademija, 2004)
The Distance Between Us (Seren, 2005)
Common Prayer (Carcanet, 2007)
On Listening (Reconstruction) (Salt Publishing, 2007)
Poetry Writing: The Expert Guide (Robert Hale, 2009)
Rough Music (Carcanet, 2010)
Percy Bysshe Shelley (Poet to Poet) (Faber and Faber, 2010)
Music Lessons: Newcastle / Bloodaxe Poetry Lectures (Bloodaxe Books, 2011)
Beyond the Lyric (Chatto & Windus, 2012)
Coleshill (Chatt & Windus, 2013)

Contributed to:
The Self on the Page: Theory and Practice of Creative Writing and Personal Development (with Celia Hunt), (Jessica Kingsley, 1997)
The Self on the Page (co–editor) (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1998)
A Fine Line: New Poetry from East and Central Europe (co–editor) (Arc Publications, 2004)
Creative Writing in Health and Social Care (editor) (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2004)
Hotal Casino (co-editor) (Aark Arts, 2004)
Evening Brings Everything Back by Jaan Kaplinski (translator) (Bloodaxe, 2004)
Writing: Self and Reflexivity (co-writer) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)
A Century of Poetry Review (editor) (Carcanet, 2009)

Eligible Writers on Tour subjects offered:

1. Readings
2. Texts for public artwork
3. Seminars and workshops
4. Community projects

AGE RANGE: Any