Author

Writer, Poet, Owl enthusiast

Current Projects:

  • Voicebox Wxm: hosting next open mic ft headliner Biz Bond on 14th September 2026.Bank St Social, 7-10pm.

  • Mainstage at Northwich Pride @ 2pm, followed by a poetry workshop at 2:40 themed on Queer Joy: read more here.

  • Slammer at Manchester’s One Mic Stand x BBC Contains Strong Language All-Stars slam! 24th September, The Blues Kitchen, 7pm. Tickets here.

  • 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!

  • Digital Content Creator for Wrexham’s Year of Wonder.

Holly is also working on her first play, set to be performed spring/summer 2027, keep an eye out for tickets!

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, please get in touch via the contact tab above.

  • Shadow DSM for Grove Park Theatre’s Little Shop of Horrors, the final show of their centenary year run.

  • 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.

  • Co-curator of Love Letters to Wrexham.

Upcoming performances:

  • Mainstage at Northwich Pride @ 2pm, followed by a poetry workshop at 2:40 themed on Queer Joy: read more here.

  • Slammer at Manchester’s One Mic Stand x BBC Contains Strong Language All-Stars slam! 24th September, The Blues Kitchen, 7pm. Tickets here.

Poetry Competition History

  • One Mic Stand x The Forward Prizes 2025 slam finalist

  • Manchester heat of I Am Loud slam 2026

  • 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

Past Headlining Performances:

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

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

  • Grizzly Pear 26th March

  • Flesh & Parchment 22nd February

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.