Andrew McMillan Judge for the Forward Prizes for Poetry

Andrew McMillan is senior lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Andrew McMillan is senior lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. His debut collection physical was the first ever poetry collection to win The Guardian First Book Award. The collection also won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, a Somerset Maugham Award (2016), an Eric Gregory Award (2016) and a Northern Writers’ award (2014). It was shortlisted the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2016, the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Roehampton Poetry Prize and the Polari First Book Prize. It was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Autumn 2015.  Most recently physical has been translated into Norwegian (Aschehoug, 2017), a bi-lingual French edition, Le Corps Des Hommes (Grasset, 2018) and is forthcoming in Galician (A Chan da Polvora, 2019). His second collection, playtime, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2018; it was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Autumn 2018. 

The Forward Prizes for Poetry are among the UK’s most coveted literary awards: their award ceremony features readings from 15 exceptional poets, and attracts a young and lively audience. It takes place this year on Sunday 20 October 2019 at Southbank Centre, London.

Collections and single poems published in the UK and Ireland between September 2018 and September 2019 are eligible for the Prizes, which honour both established writers at the peaks of their careers – Best Collection winners include Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and Claudia Rankine – and also brilliant newcomers.

Submissions are open from Monday 21st January 2019 to Friday 8th March. Find out more here.