Melissa Lee-Houghton

Melissa Lee-Houghton (born in 1982 in Wythenshawe) is an English poet, fiction writer, and essayist. Her 2016 poetry collection, Sunshine, won the Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award and Costa Book Award for Poetry.

Biography Lee-Houghton was born in 1982 in Wythenshawe, England.

Lee-Houghton began writing poetry in elementary school. As a child, she was "the victim of horrific sexual abuse" and was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In 1996, at age 14, she had a prolonged hospital stay in a psychiatric ward, during which she began writing letters and poetry. The White Review, and others. Aside from writing, Lee-Houghton regularly reviews submissions for The Short Review.

Awards and honors Beautiful Girls was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Winter 2013. Lee-Houghton was ranked 69th in PBS's "A to Z guide of 100 Women Poets to Read Now." In 2016, she won the Northern Writers’ Awards for Fiction.

Publications

Single-author collections

Bite Your Tongue When You Give Me My Name (2009) Patterns of Mourning: Poetry (2009) A Body Made of You (2011) Beautiful Girls (2013) Sunshine (2016) Cumshot in D Minor (2017) The Faithful Look Away (2018) That Lonesome Valley (2019)

Multi-author collections

Cold Fire. Poetry inspired by David Bowie (2000) Coin Opera 2, edited by Kirsten Irving and Jon Stone (2013)