Louisa Campbell was raised in an evangelical Christian cult by a criminal mother. She began writing with an Open University creative writing course in 2015 and achieved a distinction in both poetry and prose.
Her stories and poems have been published in an array of literary magazines, and several of her poems have won prizes. She was shortlisted for the prestigious Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2022, which she infamously performed with the aid of audience participation and a giant fancy dress dog head.
Her poetry pamphlet, The Happy Bus, was published in 2017 by Picaroon Poetry, and The Ward in 2018 by Paper Swans Press. Her first poetry collection, Beautiful Nowhere, was published in 2021 by Boatwhistle Books. Always writing to help people understand people, she has a background in mental health nursing, and sometimes sits down on pavements to write with homeless people.
Secret Street represents the culmination of four decades of living and working with traumatised people, observing the relationship between adverse life experience and human connectivity.
Secret Street 