about

I am a poet and filmmaker. I write about post-traumatic stress, mythmaking, chronic illness, queer experiences, and bats.

I am an alum of The London Library's Emerging Writers Programme, the Barbican Young Poets and the Writing Squad. I won the 2020 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition and was shortlisted for The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2024. My pamphlet, He Said I Was a Peach, is published with ignitionpress.
More about poetry.

My first short, You Look Fine, won Best Writer at BFI Future Film Festival and has screened at numerous Academy Award and BAFTA-recognised festivals. My second film project, The Styx, in development, is supported by Arts Council England.
More about film.

I am a Britten Pears Young Artist 2023-24 and was poet-in-residence on the English Song Course at Snape Maltings in 2023.
More about libretto.

latest news

My work has been shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize 2025.
Finalists of the Prize will be announced in the coming months.

Three poems and an essay, extracts from my in-progress collection manuscript, are published in Women Re-Creating Classics: Contemporary Voices, one of a set of two major publications with Bloomsbury edited by Emily Hauser and Helena Taylor. Buy it here.

I am the recipient of a Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant from the Arts Council.
I have used the fund to work on my first full-length poetry collection, develop my libretto practice for opera and songtext, and visit the bat populations of Austin, Texas.

My poem 'a moth' was shortlisted for the London Magazine Poetry Prize 2024 and was subsequently published in the August/September issue of The London Magazine.

I have recently changed my name, so much of my work still carries my old name (Katie Byford).

For regular updates about my work and performances please follow me on instagram.

To get in contact please email me, or message me directly on social media.