Poet-in-Residence

SOUND: Plymouth Poetry Festival is thrilled to announce our Poet-in-Residence for 2026:
Maria Ferguson!

Maria will be running workshops with families in the north of the city exploring poetry as a means of self-expression and creativity. They will also be attending and perform at community-led events, and running a workshop of their choosing with the general public.

Maria's activity at the festival will be the following events and workshops:

Sunday 12th April

• Headline performance at Word of Plymouth at the Bread and Roses

Monday 13th April

• Community workshop at The Beacon Community Centre in North Prospect

• Public workshop at Plymouth Proprietary Library: Using Your Authentic Voice 

Tuesday 14th April

• Community workshop at Four Greens Community and Wellbeing Hub in Whitleigh

Wednesday 15th April

• Community workshop at Southway Youth & Community Centre in Southway

In addition to this, Maria will also be creating a commissioned piece of work which reflects creatively on her time in Plymouth. We're so excited to have Maria on board for the festival this year, and to see what she gets up to during her stay. 

Maria Ferguson is a writer and performer. Her poetry has been widely anthologised and published in literary magazines such as Magma, The Rialto, The North and The Poetry Review. She was a finalist of the Montreal International Poetry Prize 2024 and her debut collection, Alright, Girl? (Burning Eye, 2020), was Highly Commended in the Forward Prizes. On the stage, her one-woman show Fat Girls Don’t Dance (Oberon, 2017) won the Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Show; Essex Girl (Oberon, 2019) was shortlisted for the Tony Craze Award and won Show of the Week at VAULT Festival. She has been commissioned by the Royal Academy of Arts, Stylist magazine, The Bronte Parsonage and BBC Radio. Her work has been featured in The Guardian and on Radio 4’s The Verb and Woman’s Hour. She is the Associate Producer of LIVEwire Poetry and teaches creative writing in a variety of settings. Her second poetry collection, Swell was published in 2025 by Penguin Random House.