Author

Writer, Poet, Owl enthusiast

Current Projects:

  • Voicebox Wxm: next open mic (themed on 1876 Wrexham’s Year of Wonder) on 11th May 2026.

  • Co-Curator for an upcoming ‘Love Letters to Wrexham’ anthology — launching 1st May!

  • Novel Openings Feedback Editor for ECHO REVIEW

  • Article writer for Wrexham.com

  • (ongoing) rambling poet and novelist-in-the-making. See hol.thorpe on Instagram for updates!

RECENT HIGHLIGHTs:

  • Holly ran her first creative writing workshop in a school at Oswestry School on 9th March 2026, encouraging year 9 students to embrace play and silliness in their work by using ad taglines and re-tangled clichés to connect with joy in writing.

  • New writing workshop! ‘Freaky Folklore’ opened the Wrexham Carnival of Words on 24th April 2026.

If you would like to request a workshop for any age group, please get in touch via the contact tab above.

  • Holly performed alongside many great poets including the night’s headliner, National Poet of Wales Hanan Issa, at Poetry Live & Dangerous on 27th April as part of Wrexham’s Carnival of Words.

Upcoming performances:

  • Slot at Focus Wales, 6:15pm @ Bank St Social, 7th May, Voicebox Wxm Collective

Past Headlining Performances:

  • The Big Gay Poetry Night at Heath Bookshop Literature & Music Festival Sunday 19th April

  • Grizzly Pear 26th March

  • Flesh & Parchment 22nd February

Poetry Competition History

  • One Mic Stand x The Forward Prizes 2025 slam finalist

  • Part of the highest-scoring university team in the 2025 Slam of the North

  • One of the poets selected for the 2025 The Big Gay Poetry Night - Mamma Queer ABBA Special and a winner of 2025 The Big Gay Poetry Night — Killer Queens — watch here

  • The Poetry Slam 2025 with the Poets, Prattlers and Pandemonialists (Presented by Pengwern Books) semi-finalist

ABOUT HOLLY

Holly Thorpe is a Welsh poet, author, and facilitator. She is a member of Voicebox Wxm, Hive South Yorkshire, and The Writing Squad. Holly has been published in several anthologies and competed at slams such as One Mic Stand x The Forward Prizes and The Big Gay Poetry Night — Killer Queens with poems about potatoes , cash machines, and intergalactic cheese-quests.

Her work has been published in anthologies and journals incuding the Hive anthology After Hours and in The Sheffield Review (see the Portfolio page for more about Holly’s writing projects).

She enjoys using short fiction to explore ways of thinking through mental health and Queer experience. Holly is currently working on her debut novel that uses Welsh myth to investigate the loss that comes with change.

Holly grew up in Wrexham and moved to Sheffield to study English Literature. She’s currently based in Wrexham and her research interests include animal representation in literature, folklore, and experimental fiction.