Writing Motherhood

Carolyn Jess-Cooke was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1978 and currently lives in north-east England. Her debut poetry collection Inroads (Seren, 2010) received a Northern Promise Award, an Eric Gregory Award, the Tyrone Guthrie Prize for Poetry, and was shortlisted for the New London Poetry Prize. Her debut novel The Guardian Angel’s Journal (Little, Brown/Piatkus, 2011) was published in 22 languages and her second novel, The Boy Who Could See Demons, is being made into a film. A number of her poetry commissions are featured in public art installations around England, including a poem set into a 700m ribbon of steel that runs throughout a mental health complex in Middlesbrough. She has performed her work at many festivals and venus around the world, including the Sydney Writers' Festival, the Irish Writers Centre and at the Sage Gateshead. She is mother to four children aged 1, 3, 5, and 7.