Erica
Hesketh

Erica Hesketh is a poet and editor, originally from Japan and Denmark, now based in London. Her poetry has been commissioned by the Royal Festival Hall and the London Philharmonic Orchestra among others. She was longlisted in the 2023 National Poetry Competition, and highly commended in the 2025 Forward Prizes. She has twenty years’ experience editing fiction, non-fiction and poetry, working for publishers as well as directly with authors. She is the Artistic Director of Winchester Poetry Festival, and has previously programmed events for Southbank Centre, Port Eliot Festival and others. From 2016 to 2024 she was Director of the Poetry Translation Centre. She is a member of the Southbank Centre New Poets Collective 2023–24. Her debut collection In the Lily Room is out with Nine Arches Press, and her pamphlet To an Unknown Receiver: Sonnets & Cascades is out with Guillemot Press. She is also the editor of the essay collection Living in Language: International reflections for the practising poet (Poetry Translation Centre).