About

Louise Machen is a Mancunian poet and educator. She holds a BA in English Literature from the University of Manchester and an MA in Creative Writing from The Centre for New Writing at the same institution.

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Alongside writing, she has held a variety of jobs from croupier to telesales assistant and some which she would rather forget, but all informing the repertoire of experiences that infiltrate her words. Her poetry likes to explore the complicated relationships between people and the world through a working-class lens and, while most of her poetry is written in free verse, she likes to use form to explore the restraint we can often feel in our everyday lives.

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Her work has most recently appeared in The Poetry Bus (nominated for The Forward Prize, Single Poem), Dreich, Acropolis Journal, The Morning Star, Sound and Vision – an Anthology from Black Bough Poetry and Cape Magazine. Louise has been a featured poet at East Ridge Review with a poem nominated for the Pushcart Prize (2023); she also has two poems nominated for Best of the Net (2023).

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Louise is a reader and critic for The Pencilhouse online offering feedback to poets on their current works-in-progress. She recently opened an event at The Friends Meeting House in Manchester for TME English Icons, sharing poetry about the city and its suburbs.

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A regular at poetry events across the city, you can usually find Louise reading in and around Manchester. She will be releasing a collection of poetry with Black Bough Poetry later in the year (2024) and she is currently working on another collaborative project with J. Daniel West.

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