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Julia Copus

Poet

Julia Copus is an award-winning poet and children’s writer. Her debut collection The Shuttered Eye appeared from Bloodaxe in 1995. It contained the first of several ‘specular’ poems, a form she devised in which the second half of the poem is an exact mirror of the first. In 2012 Faber published her third collection The World’s Two Smallest Humans, which was shortlisted for both the Costa poetry award and the T.S. Eliot prize. Other awards include first prize in the National Poetry Competition and the Forward prize for best single poem (2010).

Julia’s radio work includes an afternoon play Eenie Meenie Macka Racka, which won the BBC’s Alfred Bradley award, and Ghost Lines, a cycle of poems and biographical interludes about the experience of IVF, which was shortlisted for the 2012 Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry.

Palgrave published her pocket-sized writing guide Brilliant Writing Tips for Students in 2009. The book addresses students’ most common writing concerns, and arose directly from her work as an RLF Fellow at the University of Exeter. Her debut book for children Hog in the Fog (the first in the Harry & Lil series) was published by Faber in 2014.

Before she embarked on her publishing career, Julia worked as a copywriter and candlemaker, trained as a Tefl teacher and taught English in Istanbul. She now lives in Somerset with her husband and a Spanish water dog called Ruffle. She is researching a biography of the poet Charlotte Mew.

Julia Copus
Image Credit: Caroline Forbes

Fellowships

University of Exeter 2005-08
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