Stephen Sexton (Ireland) read for the 2015 Hewitt’s Carnlough Spring Festival, alongside Ciaran Carson, and at the 2017 John Hewitt Birthday Reading (Belfast Festival) alongside Sasha Dugdale and Vona Groarke. He had been scheduled to read at the 2020 Hewitt International Summer School.

Stephen first attended the Summer School as a bursary student while studying at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast. He is now a graduate of the Centre and is a Lecturer on its Creative Writing programme.

His debut pamphlet, Oils (Emma Press, 2014) was a Poetry Book Society Winter Pamphlet Choice. When all the World and Love Were Young (Penguin, 2019) was one of the most talked-about debut collections in recent years. With it, Stephen won The Forward Prize for Best First Collection, The Shine/Strong Prize for Best First Collection, and the E M Forster Award – and it was chosen as a Sunday Times, New Statesman and Telegraph Book of the Year. It was also shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the John Pollard Poetry Prize.