Hollie McNish

Hollie McNish is a poet and author based between Cambridge and Glasgow. She has published four collections of poetry: Papers (2012), Cherry Pie (2015), Why I Ride (2015), Plum (2017) and one poetic memoir on politics and parenthood, Nobody Told Me (2016), of which the Scotsman suggested “The world needs this book...and so does every new parent” and for which she won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. The latter has been translated into German, French and Spanish. McNish's sixth publication - a second cross-genre collection of poetry, memoir and short stories - Slug, and other things I've been told to hate, was published in May 2021 with Hachette with a further collection Lobster, was published in hardback in 2024 and as a paperback in 2025, with Fleet / Little Brown. In 2016, she co-wrote a play with fellow poet Sabrina Mahfouz, Offside, relating the history of British women in football. This was published as a book in 2017.

McNish has also released an album of poetry and music, Versus (2014), which made her the first poet to record an album at Abbey Road Studios, London.

As well as her own publications, McNish has written and performed poems for various campaigns and organisations, including The Economist Education Foundation, Durex's campaign for orgasm equality, and The Eve Appeal.