Ian Humphreys

Ian Humphreys is a British poet. His debut collection, Zebra, published in 2019 with Nine Arches Press, was nominated for the Portico Prize. His second poetry collection, Tormentil, won a 2022 Royal Society of Literature Literature Matters Award.

Biography Ian Humphreys was born in Bedfordshire and raised in Cheshire. He lives in West Yorkshire. He has lived in Hong Kong, Sydney, Manchester and London. His mother is from Macau and is of mixed Asian, African and European descent. His father is of Anglo-Irish descent. He has an MA degree in creative writing from Manchester Metropolitan University's Manchester Writing School, where he graduated in 2016.

Writing Humphreys participated in The Complete Works poets of colour mentoring scheme initiated by Bernardine Evaristo to redress representational invisibility. The scheme was directed by Dr Nathalie Teitler between 2007 and 2017, during which time 30 poets were mentored.

In 2017, Humphreys was featured in Ten: Poets of the New Generation (Bloodaxe Books). He is the author of the poetry collection Zebra (Nine Arches Press, 2019). His poems have been longlisted in the National Poetry Competition and his fiction has been shortlisted three times for the Bridport Prize. He is a guest editor at Butcher's Dog poetry magazine.

His second collection, Tormentil, won a Royal Society of Literature "Literature Matters" Award as a work in progress in 2022, with a September 2023 publication date from Nine Arches.

Humphreys was announced as the Brontë Parsonage Museum's writer-in-residence for 2023/24.

Awards and honours 2016: Hamish Canham Prize 2018: Highly commended in the Forward Prizes for Poetry 2019: Portico Prize 2022: RSL Literature Matters Award