Poet, author

Sally Festing’s poetry has followed ten years of journalism, radio plays, academic studies, Penguin biographies of Gertrude Jekyll, Barbara Hepworth and varied non-fiction books. She has won prizes and featured in more than 40 different magazines, in print and online:

Acumen, Agenda, Ambit, Assent, Critical Quarterly, Coffee House, Dream Catcher, Envoi, Equinox, Fenland Poetry Journal, Frogmore, Ghost Furniture Catalogue, Ink Sweat and Tears, Interpreter's House, Iota, London Grip, Links, LUPO, Magma, MaryEvans website. New Welsh Review, The North, Obsessed with Pipework, Orbis, Outposts, The New Statesman, The Poets’ Republic, Poetry Nottingham, Poetry Review, Seam, The Shop, Smith's Knoll, SMOKE, Snakeskin, The Spectator, Stand, Staple, The Times, Under the Radar, The Wolf, Wild Court, Wordplay, “14”.

Her new collection, Meeting Places, (Mica Press), will be launched in Norwich’s Maddermarket Bar on Thursday, 22 May 2025, 6-8.00 pm in Spring 2025. And again in the Boathouse, Burnham Overy Staithe, Saturday 31 May, 5-7.30 pm.

Paul Muldoon chose her opening poem in Meeting Places, ‘The Swim’, as a winner in the Open category in the Guernsey International Poetry Competition 2024.

Meeting Places also includes ‘Echoes’ from Sally’s KFS pamphlet, White Queen’s Last Stand. Sally has another full collection and five pamphlets including the much-loved Font, a tribute to the Norman font in St Mary’s Church, Burnham Deepdale.

Recently featured work includes: