BIO
Cecilia Knapp is a poet and novelist and the Young People’s Laureate for London 2020/2021. She was shortlisted for the 2022 Forward prize for best single poem. She is the winner of the 2021 Ruth Rendell award and has been shortlisted for both the Rebecca Swift Women’s prize and the Outspoken poetry prize. Her debut poetry collection Peach Pig was published by Corsair in 2022 and was the Observer’s poetry book of the month for October. Her poems have appeared in The Financial Times, Granta, The White Review, Wasafiri, Popshot, Ambit, Magma and bath magg and anthologised. She curated the anthology Everything is Going to be alright: Poems for When you Really Need Them, published by Trapeze in 2021. Her debut novel Little Boxes is published by The Borough Press. Purchase here. In 2023, Little Boxes was longlisted for The Authors Club Best First Novel Award.
She is the current poet in residence for City Bridge Foundation in partnership with The Poetry Society, tasked with celebrating five of London’s iconic bridges through poetry.
In 2021 she curated and presented the BBC radio 4 documentary Powerlines; poetry of the coast. She also appeared on Poetry Please as a guest in 2021 and has read her poetry on woman’s hour. She has shared her writing extensively at poetry events in the UK and internationally with residencies and readings in Paris, Switzerland and Johannesburg and performances including Reading Festival, Wilderness, Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Cheltenham Literature festival where she was guest curator in 2015. She’s a former resident artist at The Roundhouse and a Ted X speaker.
Cecilia writes bespoke pieces for brands and organisations. Commissions include Vogue, The Tate, The Guardian and The BBC, where she made a short poetry film for BBC iplayer. She has written for The Huffington Post, The Independent, Women’s Health and The Stage. She wrote a regular column for Mslexia magazine from 2020-2022. She was featured in British Vogue as one of the UK's young writers to watch.
Her theatre pieces Finding Home and Losing the Night both opened to sell out London runs at The Roundhouse before touring the UK. She has written text for large scale theatre productions for Lewisham Borough of Culture 2022 and IOU theatre.
She teaches creative writing in a variety of settings including City Lit. She was resident poet at Great Ormond Street Hospital for two years and is lead tutor for the Roundhouse’s prestigious poetry collective. She is an ambassador for the mental health charity CALM.