Beda Higgins is a poet and writer living in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Biography
Beda Higgins is an Anglo-Irish writer from Lancashire who lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, where she works as a Psychiatric and General Nurse. She completed a masters in creative writing from Northumbria University in 2000. In her career as a nurse she has been awarded the Queen's Nursing Institute Awards for her work using creative writing with patients. She is also a poet and short story writer who has won the Northern Writers' Awards on multiple occasions as well as the Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize. Her work is published in anthologies as well as two collections of short stories. In 2021 her work was shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize.
Publications
As Sole Author
Collection of short stories.
Anthologies and collections: Prose and poetry
2021 THE CULTURAL AFTERLIFE OF RUINS National Museums NI
2020 THESE ARE THE HANDS Fair Acre Press
2018 THE HIPPOCRATES PRIZE
2018 POEMS FOR THE NHS The Onslaught press
2018 POEMS FOR GRENFELL The Onslaught press
2016 COLD IRON Ghost stories Iron Press
2013 ROOT Iron Press
2010 BOOK OF TEN. Zebra publishing
2009 THE GRIST ANTHOLOGY OF NEW WRITING. 2006 ON NEW STREET. Biscuit Publishing 2005 THE POETRY CURE. Bloodaxe Books 2005 FOR THE KIDS. Biscuit Publishing 2002 ADRIFT FROM BELIZE TO HAVANA. Biscuit Publishing 2001 BISCUIT POETRY ANTHOLOGY.
Articles in Journals and Magazines
2022 Arts Ireland: A nurse bears witness http://www.artsandhealth.ie/perspectives/ourselves-a-nurse-poet-bears-witness/ 2021 Intima Journal of narrative medicine A LIFE 2017 Mslexia Magazine 2009 Mslexia Magazine first prize winner story 2003 Mslexia Magazine 2001 Mslexia Magazine Multiple articles and opinion pieces published in Independent Nurse.
Awards
2019 VS Pritchett short story prize longlist
2018 Hippocrates Poetry Award commendation
2016 Northern Writer New Fiction Bursary
2015 Edgehill Prize longlist
2015 Frank O’Connor Prize longlist
2012 Luke Bitmead Novel Award shortlist
2012 Edgehill Prize longlist
2011 Read Regional Recommendation
2010 Northern Writer Award
2010 Cinnamon Press novel Award shortlist
2009 winner Mslexia short story competition
2007 Residential Prize winner Biscuit Publishing
2004 Northern Promise Award
2004 Novel shortlisted Lit Idol national competition
Projects
2022 Speaker at Sunderland Symposium: Humanities in Medicine
2016–2020 BBC 2 500 words children’s competition Judge
2013 Writing mentor for New Writing North Cuckoo project
2010 Art’s council representative Toronto short story conference
2010 National Short Story Day commissioned story ‘Cinderella’ broadcast
2008 Queens Nursing Institute Award Creative Writing as a therapeutic tool
2007 Writing mentor regeneration project/New Writing North 2007
2006 Writing mentor Creative centre/New Writing North 2006
Regular contributor to Independent Nurse (Journal for Professional Nurses)
Sources
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people) Writers from Newcastle upon Tyne Anglo-Irish women poets English nurses 21st-century Irish women writers