Photo credit: Tom Weller
Kate Wakeling grew up in Yorkshire and Birmingham. A pamphlet of her poetry, The Rainbow Faults, is published by The Rialto and her first collection of poems for children, Moon Juice (illustrated by Elīna Brasliņa) is published by The Emma Press, won the 2017 CLiPPA Prize and was nominated for the 2018 Carnegie Medal.
Kate's poetry for adults has been published widely, featuring in magazines and anthologies including Magma, Oxford Poetry, Butcher's Dog, Stand Magazine, The Rialto, 3:AM magazine, The Guardian, The Best British Poetry 2014 (Salt) and The Forward Book of Poetry 2016 (Faber & Faber). Many of Kate's children's poems have also been anthologised, including in Happy Poems ed. Roger McGough (Pan Macmillan), Poems Out Loud! (Ladybird Books, Penguin) and Poetry for a Change: A National Poetry Day Anthology (Otter Barry Books). Kate is co-translator with Ayuning Maharsi Degoul of Reda Gaudiamo's The Adventures of Na Willa (POST Press/The Emma Press) and is currently working on a translation of the sequel, Na Willa and the House in the Alley.
As writer-in-residence with Aurora Orchestra, Kate is co-creator of the acclaimed Far Far Away series of children's storytelling concerts, and her scripts and stories for the orchestra have featured at venues and festivals across the UK and beyond, including Kings Place, Southbank Centre, LSO St Luke's, Snape Maltings, the Melbourne Festival, the bOing! Festival and on BBC Radio 3. Kate's work for Aurora also includes a collection of short stories published by the orchestra and sparked by the ensemble's programme of music in 2018-19. Kate writes (and sometimes performs) with chamber ensemble TROUPE – ‘concerts that tell stories’ – with recent shows at Wigmore Hall, Spitalfields Music Festival and Brazil's Festival Sesc de Música de Câmara.
Collaborating with composers is a growing part of Kate's work. Her poetry has been set by composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad in a song cycle, The Thought Machine (Champs Hill Records) and Kate is currently working on collaborations with Cecilia McDowall for Snape Maltings' celebrated 'Friday Afternoons' programme, and with Christopher Fox on The air is just desire, a response to Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10 for soprano and string quartet to be premiered by Juliet Fraser and Quatuor Bozzini at the Dartington Festival in 2020.
Kate loves performing her poetry, particularly for family audiences, and recent and forthcoming readings include appearances at Shakespeare's Globe, the Cheltenham Literature Festival, the Cheltenham Music Festival, the Bridport Literary Festival, the Bloomsbury Festival, Stratford-Upon-Avon Poetry Festival and the Imagine Children’s Festival at Southbank Centre. Kate also works regularly in primary schools and is part of an ongoing project with literary organisation Pop Up Projects to deliver creative workshops for children with special education needs and disabilities across Kent in 2019-2020.
Kate studied music at Cambridge University and holds a PhD in Balinese gamelan music from the School of Oriental & African Studies. She writes regularly for the Times Literary Supplement and reviews contemporary music for BBC Music Magazine.
Kate's poetry for adults has been published widely, featuring in magazines and anthologies including Magma, Oxford Poetry, Butcher's Dog, Stand Magazine, The Rialto, 3:AM magazine, The Guardian, The Best British Poetry 2014 (Salt) and The Forward Book of Poetry 2016 (Faber & Faber). Many of Kate's children's poems have also been anthologised, including in Happy Poems ed. Roger McGough (Pan Macmillan), Poems Out Loud! (Ladybird Books, Penguin) and Poetry for a Change: A National Poetry Day Anthology (Otter Barry Books). Kate is co-translator with Ayuning Maharsi Degoul of Reda Gaudiamo's The Adventures of Na Willa (POST Press/The Emma Press) and is currently working on a translation of the sequel, Na Willa and the House in the Alley.
As writer-in-residence with Aurora Orchestra, Kate is co-creator of the acclaimed Far Far Away series of children's storytelling concerts, and her scripts and stories for the orchestra have featured at venues and festivals across the UK and beyond, including Kings Place, Southbank Centre, LSO St Luke's, Snape Maltings, the Melbourne Festival, the bOing! Festival and on BBC Radio 3. Kate's work for Aurora also includes a collection of short stories published by the orchestra and sparked by the ensemble's programme of music in 2018-19. Kate writes (and sometimes performs) with chamber ensemble TROUPE – ‘concerts that tell stories’ – with recent shows at Wigmore Hall, Spitalfields Music Festival and Brazil's Festival Sesc de Música de Câmara.
Collaborating with composers is a growing part of Kate's work. Her poetry has been set by composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad in a song cycle, The Thought Machine (Champs Hill Records) and Kate is currently working on collaborations with Cecilia McDowall for Snape Maltings' celebrated 'Friday Afternoons' programme, and with Christopher Fox on The air is just desire, a response to Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10 for soprano and string quartet to be premiered by Juliet Fraser and Quatuor Bozzini at the Dartington Festival in 2020.
Kate loves performing her poetry, particularly for family audiences, and recent and forthcoming readings include appearances at Shakespeare's Globe, the Cheltenham Literature Festival, the Cheltenham Music Festival, the Bridport Literary Festival, the Bloomsbury Festival, Stratford-Upon-Avon Poetry Festival and the Imagine Children’s Festival at Southbank Centre. Kate also works regularly in primary schools and is part of an ongoing project with literary organisation Pop Up Projects to deliver creative workshops for children with special education needs and disabilities across Kent in 2019-2020.
Kate studied music at Cambridge University and holds a PhD in Balinese gamelan music from the School of Oriental & African Studies. She writes regularly for the Times Literary Supplement and reviews contemporary music for BBC Music Magazine.