Kate Clanchy – Year of election 2009

Kate Clanchy has written three collections of poetry. Her latest book, Antigona and Me (2008), is a cross between a biography and a memoir, and describes her relationship with her cleaner/nanny, an Albanian refugee.  She has written extensively for Radio 4, and has recently begun to publish short stories, last year winning both the BBC National Short Story Award and the RSL V.S. Pritchett Prize for ‘The Not-Dead and the Saved’. She says, “I have always felt fortunate to have time to write, surprised that I have readers, and astonished that my name is on the spines of actual books. Being elected to the Royal Society of Literature, though, is a lasting honour, and means that other writers consider me one of them, and not a chancer after all. How very surprising. What a lovely thing.”