This is a bit about me in third person (yes, I know, but I’m told it’s what I should do!)…

Originally from Worcestershire in England, Louise G Cole now lives in rural Ireland.

She won the Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry in 2018, when she had a Dublin pub re-named in her honour (albeit temporarily!). She was selected by UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy for publication of a poetry pamphlet, ‘Soft Touch’ in the Laureate’s Choice series in February 2019. Louise’s work was endorsed by Dermot Bolger, Jane Clarke and Rita Ann Higgins. Eight of Louise’s poems subsequently appeared in Carol Ann Duffy’s final anthology of her laureateship in May 2019. 

Louise has had poems, short stories and flash fiction published in anthologies, newspapers and literary magazines, including the Irish Independent, the Irish Times, Crannóg, From the Well, Stony Thursday, Skylight 47, Ropes, Autumn Leaves, Bangor Literary Journal, Boyne Berries, Poetry Bus Magazine, Southword, the Storms, Strokestown Poetry Festival Anthology, Poetry Ireland Review, the Ogham Stone and many others.

She won Strokestown Poetry Festival’s Roscommon Poets’ Prize in 2017 and 2020, the  New Roscommon Writing Award in 2019, and the Hanna Greally Literary Award for Poetry in 2023.

She was selected for mentorship with American-Irish poet Janice Fitzpatrick Simmons by the Creative Frame Network in 2017,  and with Irish author and poet Nessa O’Mahony in 2019/20 by Words Ireland. In 2021, Louise was chosen for mentorship by Dedalus Press and worked with Irish poet Joseph Woods.

Louise’s poetry pamphlet ‘Under the Influence’ was highly commended in Munster Literature Centre’s 2020 Fool for Poetry Competition, and was published in 2022 by UK publisher, Hedgehog Poetry Press. Further pamphlets were commended in Fool for Poetry competitions in 2021 and 2022, and in 2022 another poetry pamphlet was shortlisted in the Geoff Stevens Poetry Prize Competition run by Indigo Dreams.

In 2023, Louise was the editor of Roscommon County Council’s Autumn Leaves 4, a literary broadsheet showcasing poetry and prose from writers with county connections. In 2024 she will curate a series of Autumn Leaves poetry readings at Roscommon Arts Centre.

She runs a weekly creative writing group in Castlerea, County Roscommon, Ireland.

There is an up-to-date listing of her literary achievements here.

Louise is available for public readings of her work and creative writing tuition. Contact her via email at louisegcolewriter(at)gmail(dot)com