Contact details
Address
Northampton Square
London EC1V 0HB
United Kingdom
About
Overview
Dr Rebecca Tamás is a poet, nonfiction writer and critic. Her poetry pamphlet Savage was published by Clinic Press in 2017, and was ‘Pamphlet of the Year’ at the London Review of Books Bookshop, and a Poetry School ‘Book of the Year.’
Her first collection of poetry, WITCH was published in 2019 by Penned in the Margins, a book of feminist poetics, centring feminist perspectives on occult experience, and unruly female identified bodies. The writing of WITCH was supported by an Arts Council funding. WITCH was a Guardian, Times, Telegraph, The White Review, Irish Times, The Paris Review and BBC Radio 4 Open Book Book of the Year 2019, as well as a Paris Review Staff Pick and a Poetry Society Recommendation. WITCH has been adapted into a modern opera, by composer Freya Waley Cohen and librettist Ruth Mariner, and has been performed by the Tippet Quartet at venues including the Royal Academy of Music. WITCH has also been adapted into a dance performance by choreographer Kate Mcintosh for The Kaaitheater Brussels. Poems from WITCH have been translated into Romanian, Hungarian and Italian.
A specialism of Rebecca's writing is the environmental humanities. Her work has been included in poetry anthologies on the environment and climate change including: ‘Weird Folds,’ edited by Maria Sledmere for Dostoevsky Press in 2020, ‘100 Poems to Save the Earth,’ edited by Zoe Brigley and published by Seren in 2021, and ‘Poems for the Climate Emergency,’ edited by Kate Simpson and published by Valley Press in 2021; as well as The Wellcome Trust publication This Book is a Plant, published in 2022.
Rebecca was the joint winner of the £10,000 Manchester Poetry Prize 2016, and was a 2017 Fenton Arts Trust Writing Fellow. She was joint editor, with Sarah Shin, of Spells: Occult Poetry for the 21st Century, published by Ignota Press in 2018, and her poetry has been published in journals including The London Review of Books, Granta, The Chicago Review, Poetry Review, Poetry London, The White Review, The New Statesman, Magma and many more. She is Associate Editor of Oxford Poetry Magazine, and the 2022 Poetry Competition judge for Ambit Magazine.
Rebecca's book of environmental literary and artistic criticism, Strangers: Essays on the Human and Nonhuman, was published by Makina Press in October 2020, and was longlisted for The Rathbones Folio Prize 2021. This book has an interdisciplinary focus – considering fiction, poetry, visual art, folklore, political and critical theory, and radical history. Strangers has been published in translation in Spanish, Catalan and Turkish. The book was reviewed and/or covered in outlets including: Granta, The New Statesman, SPAM magazine, Caught by the River, The Skinny, The Arts Desk, MAP magazine, Tribune Magazine, The London Review of Books’ Booklist, Foyles Blog and Splice.
Rebecca's writing has appeared in The Financial Times, The Guardian, The i, The London Review of Books, Granta, Poetry Review, Poetry London, The Chicago Review and many others. Rebecca has undertaken writing and editing commissions and collaborations for organisations including The Wellcome Trust; NTS Radio; Radio 4’s Short Cuts; Magma Poetry and Abridged Magazine.
Rebecca obtained her PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from The University of East Anglia in 2017, and was the William Sharp Memorial Scholarship Student for her MA in Creative Writing at Edinburgh University, where she graduated in 2012.
Before working as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at City University, Rebecca worked an Associate Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London and The University of East Anglia; and as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at York St John University, where she co-founded The York Centre for Writing Poetry Series, which brought working class, queer and BAME poets into the university. Rebecca is currently working on the interdisciplinary environmental project 'Degrowth Futures,' with Dr Jeremy Moulton, Lecturer in Politics at York University.
Qualifications
- PhD in Creative and Critical Writing, The University of East Anglia, United Kingdom
- MA in Creative Writing, The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- BA (Hons) in English Literature and Creative Writing, Warwick University, United Kingdom
Publications
Publications by category
Books (4)
- Tamás, R. (2020). Strangers Essays on the Human and Nonhuman. Makina Books. ISBN 978-1-83843-621-6.
- Tamas, R. (2020). Strangers Essays on the Human and Nonhuman. ISBN 978-1-916060-89-0.
- Tamas, R. (2019). WITCH. Penned in the Margins. ISBN 978-1-908058-62-1.
- Shin, S. and Tamás, R. (2018). Spells 21st-Century Occult Poetry. Ignota Books. ISBN 978-1-9996759-0-5.
Media
- Tamás, R. (2022). Why does imagining the end of the world feel easier than saving it?
Professional activities
Online articles (5)
- Guardian Poetry Roundup. (2022). The Guardian.
- Why does imagining the end of the world feel easier than saving it? The Financial Times
- The Power of a Name. Granta
- The Emperor of Ice Cream. Granta
- Palermo (Poem). The London Review of Books.