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Staff
Natalie CharlesOffice Manager
Holly HopkinsForward Prize Manager
Jay BhadrichaNational Poetry Day Manager
Kate ClanchyEducation Advisor
Mónica Parle Executive Director
Mónica has stepped up from her previous role as National Poetry Day Manager, providing the continuity and organisational knowledge to drive forward the learnings of 2020. She was previously Executive Director at First Story, and before that she worked for the journal Feminist Economics and Arte Público Press. She is a Mexican American from Southeast Texas, and extracts of her novels in progress have been selected as the Longlist Winner of the 2020 Bath Novel Award and Highly Commended in Faber’s 2018 FAB Prize. She completed an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Houston.
Holly Hopkins Forward Prize Manager
Holly joined us from the Koestler Trust, where she was literature officer. She has also worked for the Poetry Society, the Poetry School and as assistant editor of The Rialto. Her debut pamphlet, Soon Every House Will Have One, was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. She was shortlisted for the 2018 Women Poets’ Prize and her work will be forthcoming in Carcanet’s New Poetries VIII.
Jay Bhadricha National Poetry Day Manager
Jay joined us from First Story, where he was their Editorial and Content Manager, responsible for publishing all their anthologies and overseeing their digital content. He has held a variety of roles including Regional Programme Officer, working in Operations, and Project Management for Granta Books.
Kate Clanchy Education Advisor
Kate Clanchy MBE is a poet, playwright and teacher. Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me has been described by Philip Pullman as “the best book on children and teaching and writing that I’ve ever read”. It is the companion volume to England: Poems from a School, an anthology of poetry by her students at Oxford Spires Academy. She won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 1996.
Trustees
William Sieghart CBETrustee & Founder
Martin ThomasChairman
Jamie AndrewsTrustee
Kim EvansTrustee
Giles SpackmanTrustee
William Sieghart CBE Trustee & Founder
William founded the Forward Prizes in 1992 and National Poetry Day in 1994. He was responsible for the 2013 Sieghart Report on libraries and e-books. He prescribes poetry for various ailments of the spirit on BBC Radio Four and at festivals across the nation: his best-selling anthologies include The Poetry Pharmacy and Poems of the Decade: an Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry
Martin Thomas Chairman
Martin is chair of BACIT (UK), the investment manager of Syncona Limited, the UK’s leading life science champion. He is a trustee of six other charities, including chair of Women for Women International. He has been a senior official at the Bank of England, senior counsel at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, and the driving force behind the Balance Foundation.
Jamie Andrews Trustee
Jamie is the Head of Culture and Learning at the British Library, leading the development and delivery of the Library’s cultural and learning purposes, and has previously led the development of the Library’s literature collections. In 2012, he was awarded a Fellowship on the Clore Leadership Programme. Jamie is also a Trustee of Oxford House, and has previous non-executive and other collaborative experience in the cultural and Higher Education sectors.
Kim Evans Trustee
Kim’s career is shaped by her passion to help bring art to the widest possible audience. She was an award-winning documentary maker and a senior executive at the BBC and Arts Council England. She now works as an arts consultant and is Chair of Clean Break, the women’s theatre company that commissions and produces new writing on stage, in prisons and in the community.