Rachel Long

is a poet. 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. Her second collection, Sparrow on the Rooftop, will be published by Chatto & Windus, in June 2026.

Long is a guest lecturer at Goldsmiths University College, London. She was Poetry Fellow at University of Hertfordshire, 2017-18, and has been a guest/visiting lecturer at University of Oxford. She tutors regularly for Faber Academy and The Poetry School, and offers private one-to-one mentorship to writers working towards publishing their debut pamphlet, first or second collections.

Her individual poems have been published in The Guardian, Poetry, The Poetry Review, Poetry London, The London Magazine, and Granta. She has curated and co-produced multiple programmes for BBC Radio 4, as well as curating literary events for Tate.

She has judged numerous literary prizes including The National Poetry Competition, The Rathbone Folio Prize, The Dylan Thomas Prize, the Poetry London Prize, and the Foyle Young Poet of the Year Award (2026).

She is in her final year of a PhD in English & Creative Writing at King’s College London.