Patricia Ace
Patricia Ace was born in Cleethorpes, of Welsh-West Indian parentage, and brought up in England, the Middle East and Canada.
Ace studied English and Drama at Goldsmiths and the University of Glasgow, and has an MLitt from the latter’s Creative Writing programme.
She lives and works in the Perthshire town of Crieff from where she teaches yoga and creative writing in schools and the wider community. Her writing explores the female experience, motherhood, botanics and spirituality.
In 1995 she co-founded the female poetry collective Lippy Bissoms and in 2006 her poetry chapbook, First Blood, was published by Happenstance Press.
Her first full collection, Fabulous Beast, was published by Freight Books in 2013, and her work has been included in several anthologies, including Be the First to Like This: New Scottish Poetry (Vagabond Voices, 2014) and numerous journals, winning competitions run by Mslexia and Aesthetica magazines.
In 2010 her poem ‘Papa Joe’ won the Plough Poetry Prize and in 2011 she was featured in photographer Chris Park’s exhibition, Dualism: Portrait & Poems. She has also collaborated with the artist Linda Furby to produce haiku postcards for The Written Image project. Ace has also published short stories and is working on her first novel.
Her most recent poetry collections are Defiance of Short Days, 2019, a self published pamphlet, and The Lido at Night, 2020, published by Red Squirrel press.