Melissa Lee-Houghton

Melissa Lee-Houghton (born in 1982 in Wythenshawe)^[1][2] is an English poet, fiction writer, and essayist. Her 2016 poetry collection, Sunshine, won the Somerset Maugham Award^[3][4] and was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award^[5] and Costa Book Award for Poetry.^[1][6]

Melissa Lee-Houghton
Born	1982 (age 42–43) Wythenshawe, England
Nationality	English
Occupation(s)	Writer, Poet
Awards	Somerset Maugham Award (2017)

Biography

Lee-Houghton was born in 1982 in Wythenshawe, England.^[1][2][7]

Lee-Houghton began writing poetry in elementary school.^[8] As a child, she was "the victim of horrific sexual abuse" and was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.^[9] In 1996, at age 14, she had a prolonged hospital stay in a psychiatric ward, during which she began writing letters and poetry.^[9] Lee-Houghton has stated, "Writing helped me feel as though I was releasing some of the anguish that I’d been forced to keep to myself."^[9] Two years later, Lee-Houghton became pregnant and homeless.^[8] In 2002, she was hospitalized for a mixed affective episode and given benzodiazepine, to which she became addicted.^[9] During this time, she was unable to keep writing, though she began again during a 2008 hospitalization.^[9] The following year, she finished her first book, A Body Made of You,^[9] which was published in 2011. Discussing the power of writing poetry for her, Lee-Houghton stated, "Writing poetry, for me, has an intoxicating effect akin to taking a drug - in many ways, it is a short-term, substitutive distraction. But it provides satisfaction, both through the act of creating and the subsequent rewards of earning money and the enthusiastic responses of others."^[9]

Her poetry, essays, and short stories have been published in Granta,^[10] The White Review,^[11] and others. Aside from writing, Lee-Houghton regularly reviews submissions for The Short Review.^[12]

Awards and honors

Beautiful Girls was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Winter 2013.^[1][12]

In 2014, Lee-Houghton was selected as a Next Generation Poet,^[7] a list created every 20 years by the Poetry Book Society of poets "expected to dominate the poetry landscape of the coming decade."^[13][14] Lee-Houghton was ranked 69th in PBS's "A to Z guide of 100 Women Poets to Read Now."^[15][16] In 2016, she won the Northern Writers’ Awards for Fiction.^[17][10]

Awards for Lee-Houghton's writing

Year	Title	Award	Result	Ref.
2016	"i am very precious"	Forward Prize for Best Single Poem	Shortlist	[18][19][9]
2016	Sunshine	Ted Hughes Award	Shortlist	[5]
2017	Sunshine	Costa Book Award for Poetry	Shortlist	[1][6]
2017	Sunshine	Somerset Maugham Award	Winner	[3][4]
2020	That Lonesome Valley	Republic of Consciousness Prize	Longlist	[20][21]

Publications

Single-author collections

• Bite Your Tongue When You Give Me My Name (2009)
• Patterns of Mourning: Poetry (2009)
• A Body Made of You (2011)
• Beautiful Girls (2013)
• Sunshine (2016)
• Cumshot in D Minor (2017)
• The Faithful Look Away (2018)
• That Lonesome Valley (2019)

Multi-author collections

• Cold Fire. Poetry inspired by David Bowie (2000)
• Coin Opera 2, edited by Kirsten Irving and Jon Stone (2013)