Steve Ely is a poet, novelist, biographer and teacher of creative writing based in Yorkshire. His book of poems, 'Oswald’s Book of Hours', was published by Smokestack in February 2013 and was nominated for the Forward prize for Best First Collection and also for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. He has subsequently published three more collections: ‘Englaland’ (Smokestack, 2015), ‘Werewolf’ (Calder Valley Poetry, 2016) and ‘Incendium Amoris’ (Smokestack, 2017). ‘Incendium Amoris’ was the recipient of a major Norther Writers Award. Two further books of poetry are forthcoming: ‘Bloody, Proud & Murderous Men, Adulterers & Enemies of God’ will be published by High Window in December 2017 and the chapbook ‘Jubilate Messi’ will be published by Shearsman in 2018.

Ely’s work is widely published in journals, newspapers and magazines, including The London Review of Books, The Poetry Review, The Sunday Times, The Tablet, The North, Magma, the Morning Star and many others. Steve’s poetic response to the First World War, ‘How dear is life’, was commissioned by the Poetry Society and premiered at a reading at the South Bank Centre in October 2014. He has read at a number of festivals and literary events including, the Blenheim Palace Literary Festival, the Oxford Literary Festival and the Cornwall Contemporary Poetry Festival. He’s written a novel, ‘Ratmen’ (Blackheath Books, 2012) and a biographical work about the early life of Ted Hughes, ‘Ted Hughes’s South Yorkshire: Made in Mexborough’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

Steve is an experienced teacher of creative writing in community, school, residential and workshop settings and is senior lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Huddersfield, where he is also the Director of the Ted Hughes Network – a research centre into the work of the eponymous laureate. He is chair of the Ted Hughes Project (South Yorkshire) a community group based in Mexborough which organises the annual Ted Hughes Poetry Festival in the town and runs extensive creative programmes in the community and in schools.

Steve can be contacted via at steveely@btinternet.com, via his University Staff page http://www-old.hud.ac.uk/ourstaff/profile/index.php?staffid=1454 or via Twitter https://twitter.com/JohonSchepe. m.

• ‘Incendium Amoris’ (Smokestack Books, 2017) • ‘Tales of the Tribe: Modern epic, guerrilla-pastoral and utopian yeoman-anarchism in Oswald’s Book of Hours and Englaland’. (Doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2016). • ‘Werewolf’ (Calder Valley Poetry, 2016) • ‘Six poems from sufficient unto the day’ (Poetry Review , 106.3, 2016) • ‘The importance of Edna Wholey to the poetic development of Ted Hughes’ (The Ted Hughes Society Journal , 5.1, 2015. • ‘Ted Hughes's South Yorkshire: Made in Mexborough’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) • ‘Beasts of Eden’: Ted Hughes and influence’ (The Dark Horse 35, 2015) • ‘Englaland’ (Smokestack Books, 2015) • ‘Werwolf’ (London Review of Books 35.5, 2015). • ‘The White Hart’, 'Hugo of Fyslake' and 'Eofor' (Poetry Review 104.4, 2014) • ‘Prayers in time of Great Hunger’ (London Review of Books 36.8., 2014) • ‘How dear is life’ (‘The Pity, The Poetry Society, 2014) • 'Deir ez-Zor', 'Work', 'Interhamwe' and 'Fasayil' (Poetry Review , 104.1, 2014) • ‘Oswald’s Book of Hours’ (Smokestack Books, 2013) • ‘Ted Hughes's South Yorkshire’ (The Ted Hughes Society Journal, 3.1, 2012) • ‘Ratmen’ (Blackheath Books, 2012)