Karen McCarthy writes poetry, drama and short fiction for print, online, broadcast and live platforms. In 2005 her play Dido, based on the life of a mixed-race girl who grew up in Kenwood House, Hampstead in the 1760s, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She was also writer in residence at the Museum of Garden History and literature development agency Spread the Word.  Her  chapbook The Worshipful Company of Pomegranate Slicers was selected as a New Statesman Book of the Year in 2006. She has run workshops, edit surgeries and presented her work everywhere from the Barbican to Buckingham Palace.

 

She was a featured artist selected to read at the Purcell Room, South Bank Centre as part of FreeVerse and she also won a Time to Write Award from the Arts Council England to work on a first full collection of poetry. She is one of ten poets selected for The Complete Works development programme under the mentorship of Michael Symmons Roberts and has also been mentored by Selima Hill. Current commissions include an installation piece My T-Shirt Says for The London Word Festival and Open Notebooks - a project exploring the  writer's process and creativity for literature development agency Spread the Word.   

 

She is the editor of two critically acclaimed anthologies Bittersweet: Black Women's Contemporary Poetry (The Women's Press) and Kin: New Fiction by Black and Asian Women (Serpent's Tail). She is also a contributing editor and reviewer for the international literary journal Wasafiri.