About — Victoria Bennett

A Life in Practice

Writer, poet,
literary curator

Victoria lives in Orkney with her husband, artist Adam Clarke, and their son, where she tends an apothecary garden by the sea. Her work is shaped by lived experience of motherhood, caregiving, and disability, and by the ongoing practice of making a life in close relationship with place. With over 30 years' experience of writing and supporting others to write, she works from a belief that we each have a right to tell our own stories, and that when we live in the world as ourselves, what we create from that place is more powerful and more beautiful than we might imagine.

Book Victoria to speak

Books & Poetry

Writing across memoir, poetry, and digital forms

Victoria holds an MA in Creative Writing, and her poetry has been widely published and recognised through awards and commissions. Her poetic practice sits alongside her prose work, shaping the voice and sensibility of her writing and reflecting an ongoing commitment to language as a site of attention, enquiry, and transformation.

Her debut memoir, All My Wild Mothers: Motherhood, Loss and an Apothecary Garden (John Murray Press, 2023), won the Nautilus Book Award for Memoir and the Northern Debut Award, was shortlisted for the Lakeland Book of the Year and the People's Book Prize, longlisted for the Nan Shepherd Prize, translated into Korean, and named an Aladin 'Best Book of the 21st Century'.

Her second book, The Apothecary by the Sea: A Year in an Orkney Garden (Elliott & Thompson, 2025), continues this work, weaving together seasonal essays, plant knowledge, and lived experience to explore midlife, place, and the quiet, necessary practice of tending a life.

She is a recipient of the Hugo Burge Creative Individuals Award (2025–26), has been selected for the Moniack Mhor Spring Residency, and was shortlisted for the World of Books Sustainable Stories Award for her current work-in-progress, RUST.

Wild Women & Wider Practice

Three decades of writing, publishing, and community

Through Wild Women Press, a long-standing independent literary platform founded nearly three decades ago, and the international Wild Women Writers' Salons, Victoria Bennett has created a vital space dedicated to platforming underrepresented voices and reshaping how stories are shared. Bringing together writers from across the world, the salons offer thoughtful, politically engaged conversations on memoir, nature writing, identity, and the ethics of storytelling, while fostering a strong sense of community in an often isolating industry.

Alongside her books, she develops cross-disciplinary work that expands memoir into digital and immersive forms. She received the DYCP Arts Council England Award for Geographies of Loss, an immersive poetry and VR project exploring absence and inheritance, and The Literary Platform Writing Bursary for My Mother's House, an interactive poem-game examining terminal cancer care, featured in the Guardian.

Teaching, Mentoring & Residencies

Supporting writers to find their voice

Alongside her creative work, Victoria has extensive experience as a creative writing tutor and mentor, working across universities, community settings, and the third sector. She has lectured with the Lancaster University Creative Writing Department and led workshops, residencies, and mentoring programmes that create inclusive, thoughtful spaces for writers to develop their voice, explore their stories, and build sustainable creative practices with confidence and care.

Work with Victoria

Commissions, talks, and conversations

Victoria is available for commissions, essays, residencies, keynote talks, and curated conversations. She is an award-winning writer, poet, and literary curator whose work explores the relationships between land, body, and the stories we inherit and make. Writing across memoir, essays, and poetry, she is known for work that is intimate, lyrical, and politically alert, rooted in an ecology of care and a deep attention to the natural world.

A compelling and thoughtful speaker, she writes and speaks regularly on nature writing, memoir, disability, motherhood, and the role of creativity in times of personal and collective change. She is particularly interested in commissions and conversations that explore:

nature writing and the more-than-human world
memoir, voice, and the ethics of personal storytelling
disability, chronic illness, and creative practice
motherhood, care, and interdependence
midlife as a site of transformation and re-making
ecology, extraction, and the politics of land and belonging
cross-disciplinary and digital approaches to narrative, including interactive and immersive forms

Whether writing, teaching, or in conversation, she brings a practice grounded in attention, honesty, and an ecology of care. Her work invites audiences not only to listen, but to reflect, to question, and to find their own way back into relationship with what matters.

If this resonates with the work you are doing, please do get in touch.

Voices

What writers and readers say

On the Wild Women Writers' Salons

'The Wild Women Writers' Salons give women readers and writers the precious opportunity to contemplate the intersection of the environmental and the personal in a warm, dynamic and intellectually exciting space with the common goal of sharing and acquiring wisdom. What could be more sacred?'

Liz Jensen, author of Your Wild and Precious Life

'Victoria Bennett's Wild Women Writers' Salons are a lifeline. Her commitment to platforming marginalised writers makes the salons an essential and much needed space. Long may it continue!'

Caro Clarke, Literary Agent at Portobello Literary & co-founder of the Nan Shepherd Prize

'Enriching, affirming and supportive.'

Gulara Vincent, author of Fragile Bodies

'A non-judgemental, non-competitive and supportive space — an island of relief in a confusing sea.'

Rebecca Beattie, author of The Wheel of the Year

On creative workshop spaces

'Victoria Bennett has a wonderful eye and a gentle nurturing approach which fosters a fantastic sense of inclusion and possibility, for writers and readers alike.'

Louise Kenward, editor of Moving Mountains

'Victoria's incredibly thoughtful salon groupings give rise to some truly astounding conversations.'

Alyssa Greybeal, author of Floppy

'A safe and beautiful space for discussion, learning and sharing.'

Annie Worsley, author of Windswept

'I have been deeply impressed by the inclusive warmth and generosity of the project delivery.'

Lisa Woollett, author of Lost to the Sea

'Uniquely generative for authors and audiences alike.'

Dr Sarah Thomas, author of The Raven's Nest

'A beautiful, safe space which is nurturing and respectful but also stimulating and interesting for all those involved.'

Sophie Pierce, author of The Green Hill

On facilitation

'Victoria is a caring human being, always thoughtful and compassionate when working with others and very aware of their different needs. She is conscientious and detail-driven yet also manages to be a strategic thinker who has vision, imagination and creativity when problem-solving. She is one of life's givers and makes a positive difference to the lives of those she encounters.'

Catherine Simpson, author of One Body

'Victoria is a facilitator of dreams! She's not only organised and kind, but her incredibly thoughtful salon groupings give rise to some truly astounding conversations. I count myself very lucky to have been pulled into her orbit.'