Somerset Maugham Award
1 appearances
Melissa Lee-Houghton
メリッサ・リー＝ハウトン
Merissa Rī-Hōton
Profile
- Gender
- Female
- Born
- 1982 （Wythenshawe）
- Nationality
- United Kingdom
- Languages
- English
- Residence History
- Wythenshawe, England
Career
- Occupations
- Writer, Poet, Essayist
- Active Years
- 2009-2024
- Nominations
- Ted Hughes Award 2016 Shortlist, Costa Book Award for Poetry 2017 Shortlist, Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2016 Shortlist, Republic of Consciousness Prize 2020 Longlist
Awards
| Year | Award | Work | Category | Organization | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Somerset Maugham Award | Sunshine | 詩集 | Society of Authors | Winner |
| 2016 | Northern Writers’ Awards for Fiction | — | — | New Writing North | Winner |
Somerset Maugham Award
2017
Work:
Sunshine
Category:
詩集
Organization:
Society of Authors
Result:
Winner
Northern Writers’ Awards for Fiction
2016
Organization:
New Writing North
Result:
Winner
Awards & Nominations
Works
Major Works
Sunshine
2016 PoetryA poetry collection dealing with mental anguish and recovery.
Mental illnessAbuseRecovery
Bibliography
- Bite Your Tongue When You Give Me My Name (2009)
- Patterns of Mourning: Poetry (2009)
- A Body Made of You (2011)
- Beautiful Girls (2013)
- Sunshine (2016)
- Cumshot in D Minor (2017)
- The Faithful Look Away (2018)
- That Lonesome Valley (2019)
Style & Themes
- Literary Style
- Raw confessional poetryEmotional intensity
- Recurring Motifs
- Mental illnessTraumaAddiction
Health
-
Bipolar disorder幼少期から現在Led to repeated hospitalizations and impacted writing.
-
Benzodiazepine addiction2002年頃Caused interruption in writing.
Legacy
Prominent contemporary English poet known for works on mental health, winner of Somerset Maugham Award.
Quotes
-
Writing helped me feel as though I was releasing some of the anguish that I’d been forced to keep to myself.
Source: The Guardian (2016) -
Writing poetry, for me, has an intoxicating effect akin to taking a drug - in many ways, it is a short-term, substitutive distraction. But it provides satisfaction, both through the act of creating and the subsequent rewards of earning money and the enthusiastic responses of others.
Source: Forward Arts Foundation
Trivia
- Victim of horrific sexual abuse as a child.
- Hospitalized in psychiatric ward at age 14.
- Pregnant and homeless at 16.
- Selected as Next Generation Poet in 2014.