About me

Richard Skinner is a writer working across fiction, life writing, essays, non-fiction and poetry. He has published three novels with Faber & Faber, three books of non-fiction and three books of poetry. His work has been nominated for prizes and is published in eight languages. Richard is represented by Clare Conville at Conville & Walsh.

Richard's poetry first appeared in the Faber anthology First Pressings (1998) and since then in anthologies for William Blake, John Berger and Médicines Sans Frontières. His latest book of poems 'The Malvern Aviator', was published by Smokestack in April 2018 ('Richard Skinner’s The Malvern Aviator carries a freight of deep poetic intelligence.' George Szirtes).

Richard is a longstanding member of the group #PablosEye, whose 2017 release 'southlite' was produced using #dub techniques and is based on his writings. You can download the press release here. Pablo's Eye's most recent release is the 'Bardo for Pablo' EP, titled after one of his poems in 'The Malvern Aviator'.

Richard also runs Vanguard Readings, a London-based reading series which has been running monthly since 2011 and has so far included more than 70 events. #VanguardOnTour started in 2016 and has so far made stops at Grasmere, Birmingham, Hay-on-Wye, Margate, Norwich, Leeds, Ludlow & Manchester. More stops in 2018 at Hay-on-Wye, Southwold, Brighton, Salisbury, Sheffield, Huddersfield, Workington & Bristol.

In 2014, he founded Vanguard Editions and has so far edited and published three anthologies as well as six original single-authored books of poetry, stories and art-writing. He is the editor of three other poetry anthologies: The Ecchoing Green: Poems Inspired by William Blake (The Big Blake Project, 2015),  Winter Solstice Anthology (co-edited with Marie Lightman, 2018) and a Dub Poetry Anthology (Hesterglock Press, co-edited with Paul Hawkins, 2019). Vanguard Editions has an ACE-funded Social Action imprint that publishes books to support and promote marginal voices.

Richard is Director of the Fiction Programme at the Faber Academy and a tutor on its six-month 'Writing a Novel' course.