Nia Broomhall won the 2023 Mslexia Women’s Poetry Pamphlet Competition judged by Imtiaz Dharker for her debut collection Backalong, to be published by Bloodaxe Books/Mslexia in September 2024. She received an MA with distinction in Creative Writing from Lancaster University in 2023, and is Poet in Residence at Painshill Park in Surrey for 2024, funded by an Arts Council DYCP grant. Her poems have been published in Magma, Bad Lilies, Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Alchemy Spoon, The Interpreter's House and The Friday Poem, and anthologised by Sidhe Press and Black Bough Poetry. She won the Poetry Society’s Hamish Canham Prize for 2023/2024, and was Highly Commended in the Winchester Poetry Prize in 2022 and 2023. Currently co-Head of English at a comprehensive school in Surrey, the best hour of her week is Poetry Club on a Friday afternoon. Originally from rural Somerset, she comes from a long line of West Country women who talk to strangers and embarrass their children.

Author photo: Sue Nitti