Christy Ducker

Christy Ducker is the author of four poetry books and pamphlets: Messenger (Smith Doorstop, 2017), Heroes (Smith Doorstop, 2016), Skipper (Smith Doorstop, 2015) and Armour (Smith Doorstop, 2011). Her work has won a Northern Writers’ award, a Forward prize commendation, and a selection as PBS pamphlet choice. Favourable reviews and articles about her writing have featured in the TLS, The Guardian and Brain Pickings, among others. A social poet, Christy takes poetry into places it rarely travels. She has collaborated with a wide range of people to generate poems, including transplant surgeons, hydrographers, horse dentists and trawlermen. She frequently works as a poet in residence, most recently with the National Trust, Newcastle hospitals, British Lung Foundation, and York’s Centre for Chronic Diseases. Christy has a particular interest in the relationship between poetry and health. She is currently working on a new collection of poems which explores how socio- politics intersect with the human body. As part of this process, she spent a year at Edinburgh Surgeons’ Hall writing ‘Poetry and the Pathology Museum: a model of difference’. This experimental poetry-essay was published as a chapter in the co-authored book, Post-Specimen (Intellect Books, 2020). Passionate about education, Christy has over twenty years’ teaching and public engagement experience. Before becoming a professional writer, and gaining a PhD in creative writing, she taught English in secondary schools. She now tutors creative writing courses for university students, and runs numerous poetry workshops with the general public. She lives in the North Pennines with her partner and her two children.