Vicky is a British/Welsh poet, editor, mentor, creative practitioner and the founder of Hive Young Writers for creative writers aged 14 to 30 in the north. She grew up in North Wales, and is based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. Her debut pamphlet If All This Never Happened (Southword Editions) was a winner of the Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition and shortlisted for Best Poetry Pamphlet in the 2021 Saboteur Awards. For 24 years she has worked as a freelance creative, educator, facilitator and producer on numerous short and long-term projects with people of all ages, backgrounds and experience levels. A passion, and much of the focus of her work, is supporting the artistic, personal and professional development of young writers.
Vicky facilitates across creative writing, filmmaking, journalism, visual art, design, multimedia and photography in a wide variety of contexts and settings. She has devised, managed and delivered numerous creative projects and undertaken commissions as an artist and designer, a filmmaker and, more extensively in recent years, a writer. Vicky was shortlisted for the Mairtin Crawford Award for Poetry 2022 and is a recent Jerwood/Arvon mentee for poetry 2019/20. She won a Northern Writers Award in 2014 for fiction.
For the past 15 years, Vicky has focused on working as a writing facilitator and development worker building young writers’ provision in the South Yorkshire region. From 2005 to 2012, she ran the mighty Cube Young People’s Magazine, a work experience journalism and media project for young people. In 2016 she set up Hive South Yorkshire, a consortium writing project and hub for young writers aged 14 to 30, in the region. Her work in this area includes running creative writing groups and projects, mentoring young and emerging writers, live events and large-scale festivals, devising competitions, producing & editing anthologies, magazines and exhibitions, and building participation and networks.
In 2019, Vicky received a Sarah Nulty Award for Creativity at the inaugural Women of Sheffield Awards and a BBC Creative Champion commendation for her years of creative work, particularly in developing young writers and creative provision in the region.
Please note, there are many projects yet to be added to the online portfolio (but they are buried on many external hard drives!)
Vicky grew up on the North Wales coast and is based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. Time off means writing, reading, pottering in the garden, exploring, long podcast walks and fixing things. Her favourite quote remains this, from William James, which has stayed with her since she first read it many years ago.