Jacqueline Saphra

Jacqueline began her writing life with poetry but was seduced by theatre in her early teens. Her career as a playwright, commissioned by touring companies and later writing for theatres like The Watford Palace and the Manchester Library Theatre was slowed by the advent of motherhood. Four children later, she has managed to fit in a regular poetry column for Good Housekeeping; Joshua’s Egg, a play for children Theatre Centre; a screenwriting course at The National Film School and several years in development hell in the film industry. It was after the birth of her fourth child that poetry reappeared as a driving force in her life. Since then, she has written three full collections and four chapbooks. In 2017, All My Mad Mothers was published by Nine Arches Press and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize. Her most recent books are Dad, Remember You Are Dead from Nine Arches Press, 2019, and Veritas, a sonnet sequence about the life and work of the renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi, due from Hercules Editions in May 2020.