Clementine E Burnley is a poet, writer, mother, and conflict mediator. After studying, first Literature and then Applied Linguistics to MSc. Level, she moved to a tiny village near Varese, Northern Italy. Her lifelong interest in political science led to the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, on the beautifully wooded grounds of an old nuclear reactor project, EURATOM. The unit she worked in, supported the old External Relations Directorate with Disaster Management advice and tools. She has travelled widely within Africa, working for some years with partners in Zimbabwe, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. She has worked for a medium sized environmental consultancy, and for a large umbrella network of self-organised migrant groups, advocating for migrant rights, before founding her own freelance consultancy business in 2019.
Clementine was born in a plantation hospital in Ekona-Mbengue. She was raised in Victoria, a small town, now called Limbe, in Cameroon. She has lived and written in Glasgow, Taino, Italy, and Berlin, Germany. Now, she commutes between a small island that is part of the Inner Hebrides, and Edinburgh.
Clementine’s themes reflect her interest in relationships, nature, and humans as a reluctant part of their natural environment. She has published hybrid short prose pieces, and flash fiction. Her most recent poems can be found in Magma Poetry, The Poetry Review, and Writers Mosaic. Clementine’s poetry film Paradise Engines was commissioned as part of the Africa in Motion Festival. Her short story collection, (Women Outside), was shortlisted for the first Amsterdam Open Book Prize, in 2020. She is an Obsidian Poet, and a 2020 Edwin Morgan Grantee. In 2021 she was selected for the Sky Emerging Writer Award. At the moment she is working on a full-length nonfiction book.