Anne Hay grew up in Perth and lives in Edinburgh. Her writing life began with short fiction and comedy broadcast on Radio 4 and Radio Scotland. She published her first poems in 2014 and found a stronger voice after joining a creative writing group with Valerie Gillies at Maggies Cancer Care Centre in 2018. In 2020 she won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers’ Award.
Her poems have been published in anthologies and magazines including Magma, Gutter, Envoi and Northwords Now. She writes poetry to explore the transience of life and the beauty of the ordinary. And because it’s a great way to hang out with like-minded people.
Her career was in adult education, teaching creative writing, adult literacy and study skills, always with an underlying message of learning to be yourself. She has delivered over 4,000 workshops with Open Studies, Edinburgh university, Edinburgh City Council, Workers’ Educational Association and in 1999 set up the Edinburgh branch of Survivors’ Poetry, Writing Off the Wall and Open Book Reading at Scottish Portrait Gallery.
Anne Hay 