Clare Pollard Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Plays

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Collections

Clare Pollard is an award-winning poet who is the winner of the Forward Prize for her work “Pollen.”

She was born in 1978 in Bolton in the UK and now makes her home in South London where she lives with her husband and two kids.

She was still in school when she published “Heavy Petting Zoo,” her first poetry collection in 1998 that won the Eric Gregory Award.

In 2002, she published “Bedtime” and followed it up with the WJEC A-level syllabus text “Look, Clare! Look” in 2005.

“The Weather” which was her first play that she published in 2004 made its theater debut at the “Royal Court Theatre” and has also been performed at the Munich-based “Munchner Kammerspiele.”

She worked with BBC Radio 4’s WN Herbert in cowriting “Surface to Air,” the radio play. Pollard has also had a residency in Beijing, toured with the British Council, and worked on numerous translation projects.
In 2003, she was the winner of the travel award from the “Society of Authors” and a writer’s award from the Arts Council.
At some point, she was on the list of Top Writers Under 30 by “The Independent.”

For the most part, Clare Pollard makes a living working as a teacher, journalist, and editor. She is the editor of the Ted Hughes-founded “Modern Poetry in Translation” and works for “The Idler” as a poetry editor.
Clare has also worked with James Byrne coediting an anthology titled “Voice Recognition” published by Bloodaxe.

Given her reputation as one of the best poets in her genre, she often gets called upon to be a judge in poetry competitions.

Pollard has been a judge for the “Northern Writer Awards,” “PBS Next Generation list,” “Manchester International Poetry Prize,” and the “Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize. “

Her reviews and articles have been published in various prestigious publications such as The Dark Horse, The Guardian, Poetry Review, The Independent, Poetry London, The TES, Poetry London, and Critical Quarterly.
In addition to appearances on “Newsnight Review,” “The Verb,” “Poetry Please,” and “Woman’s Hour,” she has presented and written two documentaries for radio and television.
She also works as a mentor for “New Writing North” and is an Essex University Royal Literary Fellow.

As for how she got started in poetry, Clare Pollard began writing while she was in the sixth form.

She got into poetry for the teenage reasons of discovering Sylvia Plath while she was doing a course during the A levels and for unrequited love.

She had always desired to be a writer for the longest time but it is with poetry that she finds things always flow.

Things started moving when Neil Astley her editor was reading “The Rialto” and spotted “The Heavy Petting Zoo” her debut poem.

She then asked her to submit a manuscript and she published her first work while she was still in college. Back then she did not realize how lucky she was to become a writer at such a young age but now she could not be more grateful.

When she is not writing, Clare Pollard loves to travel as she feels most alive when she is experiencing new things, learning, and discovering.
She also finds spending time with her husband and the good food on her travels to be a source of inspiration. Some of her favorite places that she has traveled to include New York, Saigon, Rome, Mexico City, and Jaipur.
She will sometimes find inspiration in getting immersed in the different cultures, which she then writes about from her perspective as a privileged Western outsider.

Clare Pollard’s novel “The Modern Fairies” is a work that has been called “Matrix” by Lauren Groff meets “The Favorite” by Ophelia Field.

It is all about an elite group of intellectuals from Paris who perform fairy tales that will completely change the course of literature.

Far away from the courtly intrigues of Versailles, an intellectual crowd most of whom are women have been meeting to share fairy tales.

Charles Perrault who was recently booted from the court and is still mourning the loss of his wife finds creative camaraderie and companionship with the storytellers at the salon.
But their hostess is a fiercely intelligent and impressive woman is harboring secrets of her own.

While Versailles has been abuzz with gossip Marie somehow got a pass and is back in polite society running her salon in the heart of the French capital. When winter comes, it brings with it all manner of fears and rumors.
Meanwhile, Versailles has experienced several poisonings and the king is paranoid. This only worsens things at the salon, as it seems there is someone planted there waiting and watching while reporting everything happening.
It is a witty, bawdy, and dazzling work with stories within stories that provide some intense thrills.

“Delphi “by Clare Pollard is a captivating debut about a professor of classics who could not be dragged away from researching a prophecy on the ancient world.

But while researching she confronts some chilling questions regarding her life just at the beginning of the pandemic.

At the beginning of the story COVID-19 has come to the English capital London and it is not long before the globe is subjected to the chaotic and surreal banality of isolation and screens.

The professor who is the narrator of the story navigates a marriage in crisis, the tightening grip of lockdowns, and having to deal with her withdrawing ten-year-old child.

She cannot help but become obsessed with knowing what the future holds. She shifts her focus from palm reading to animal behavior and then to prophecy by wine but still cannot see the future as it enters her home and when she does it is already too late.
Funny, brainy, imaginative, and ominous it is a time capsule and a snapshot as it places our reality and current moment in mythical contexts.

This has to be one of the best novels about the pandemic as Pollard writes a richly layered and mesmerizing work about the absurdity and uncertainty of living in the pandemic world.