Rachel Long

is a writer, and the founder of the Octavia Poetry Collective for Women of Colour, which was housed, for six years, at the Southbank Centre, in London. Her debut collection, My Darling from the Lions was published by Picador in the UK, in 2020, and by Tin House, in the US, in 2021. It was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, The Costa Book Award, The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, The Rathbones Folio Prize, and the Jhalak Prize Book of the Year by a Writer of Colour. The US edition of My Darling from the Lions was a New York Times Book Review and named one of the 100 must-read books of 2021 by TIME.

Long has held guest lecturer positions at Goldsmiths University College, London (2022-3), as well as being a guest reader at University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. She was Poetry Fellow at University of Hertfordshire, 2017-18. Long was Assistant Tutor on the Barbican Young Poets programme for five years (2016-2021). She tutors regularly, both nationally and internationally, for The Arvon Foundation, Faber Academy, The Poetry School, and The Irish Writers Centre – as well as running specialist creative writing workshops. She has mentored writers of all ages, backgrounds, and levels of experience on mentee programmes, as well as independently.

Other works (individual poems, non-fiction) have been published, most notably, in The Guardian, Poetry, Granta, The Poetry Review, and The White Review. She has curated and co-produced multiple programmes for BBC Radio, as well as curating literary engagement events for Tate, Africa Writes, and the University of Kingston.

She has judged numerous literary prizes including The National Poetry Competition, The Rathbone Folio Prize, The Dylan Thomas Prize, and the Poetry London Prize. She is in her final year of a PhD in Creative Writing at King’s College London.