Rachel Long was born in London in 1988. Her poems have featured in magazines and anthologies including Magma, Butcher’s Dog, PAIN and The London Magazine. She was awarded a Jerwood/Arvon Mentorship in 2015, and was the winner of The Poetry School’s inaugural Paterson Poetry Competition 2016. She is Assistant Tutor to Jacob Sam-La Rose on the Barbican Young Poets programme, and is the leader of Octavia – Poetry Collective for Women of Colour, housed at Southbank Centre.
Octavia have featured on BBC World Service, performed at Women of the World and The London Literature Festival, and have run poetry workshops at Oxford University and for The Serpentine Galleries.
Inspired by Octavia, Rachel has curated ‘Telling Her Story’, an open workshop series for women of colour, hosted and in partnership with Southbank Centre.
