Kevin Crossley-Holland

Kevin has recently published Gravity for Beginners, his first volume of poems for six years, and a collection of Norse Tales illustrated by Jeffrey Alan Love. He has been appointed an ambassador for the Almshouse Association, and has written a commissioned poem for their 75th birthday celebrations.

He has written nine collections of poetry, and his new and selected poems, The Mountains of Norfolk, were published by Enitharmon Press in 2011. His most recent collection is The Breaking Hour (Enitharmon, 2015). His Arthur trilogy has won worldwide critical acclaim and has been translated into twenty-five languages. He has translated Beowulf from Anglo-Saxon and is the author of The Penguin Book of Norse Myths and British Folk Tales. His memoir of childhood, The Hidden Roads, was published in 2009. And his completely new version for children, Norse Myths: Tales of Odin, Thor and Loki was published by Walker Books in 2017.

Kevin’s collaborations with composers include two operas with Nicola LeFanu (The Green Children and The Wildman), song cycles with Sir Arthur Bliss and William Mathias, settings by Bob Chilcott, Bernard Hughes, Giles Swayne and Cecilia McDowall, and a carol with Stephen Paulus for King’s College, Cambridge. His play The Wuffings (co-authored with Ivan Cutting) was produced by Eastern Angles in 1997.

Kevin is an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a patron of the Society for Storytelling. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Worcester, and is the immediate past President of the School Library Association, (2012-2017). Over the years, he has returned to the Hall on numerous occasions to give poetry readings; and two of his poems appear in the College anthology, Chatter of Choughs. His daughter Oenone is also a Hall writer, and the author of Hands Up!: A Year in the Life of An Inner City School Teacher (2010).

He also recently