Sam Meekings is an acclaimed British novelist and poet, and an Associate Professor of Creative Writing. He grew up on the South Coast and has spent the last ten years living and working in China and the Middle East.
His short memoir, ‘A Fist of Muscle’, was selected to be published in Best American Essays 2023. His writing has received an Authors Foundation award from the Society of Authors, and his books have been featured on the BBC website, in The Independent, on Arena on Radio 1, and in the National Geographic.
Sam has read and performed his work at spoken word events and literary festivals around the UK, including the Jaipur Literature Festival, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Ullapool Book Festival, the Lowdham Book Festival, and the South Downs Poetry Festival. He was chosen to be the Poet in Residence in Bunhill Fields and has received two writing residencies, at the Rockvale Writers’ Colony, in the USA, and at Poet Agora Athens, in Greece. His stories and poems have been published in TEXT A Journal of Writing and Writing Courses, the New Texas Journal, Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal, the Birmingham Arts Journal, the Bacopa Literary Review, and in anthologies from Guillemot Press and Freight Books
Sam believes in the power of writing to make change in people’s lives. He created and organizes a local Spoken Word open mic night, and is currently working in partnership with a neuropsychologist to study the effects of storytelling on healing in patients suffering from psychogenic non-epileptic events. As an a cademic, he researches the practices and processes of writing, with a particular focus on trauma writing.
As a full-time single parent of two kids, Sam squeezes writing into the hours between bedtime and daybreak, fuelled by copious cups of tea.
His short memoir, ‘A Fist of Muscle’, was selected to be published in Best American Essays 2023. His writing has received an Authors Foundation award from the Society of Authors, and his books have been featured on the BBC website, in The Independent, on Arena on Radio 1, and in the National Geographic.
Sam has read and performed his work at spoken word events and literary festivals around the UK, including the Jaipur Literature Festival, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Ullapool Book Festival, the Lowdham Book Festival, and the South Downs Poetry Festival. He was chosen to be the Poet in Residence in Bunhill Fields and has received two writing residencies, at the Rockvale Writers’ Colony, in the USA, and at Poet Agora Athens, in Greece. His stories and poems have been published in TEXT A Journal of Writing and Writing Courses, the New Texas Journal, Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal, the Birmingham Arts Journal, the Bacopa Literary Review, and in anthologies from Guillemot Press and Freight Books
Sam believes in the power of writing to make change in people’s lives. He created and organizes a local Spoken Word open mic night, and is currently working in partnership with a neuropsychologist to study the effects of storytelling on healing in patients suffering from psychogenic non-epileptic events. As an a cademic, he researches the practices and processes of writing, with a particular focus on trauma writing.
As a full-time single parent of two kids, Sam squeezes writing into the hours between bedtime and daybreak, fuelled by copious cups of tea.