Award-winning working-class writer, playwright and director, Louise Powell is working on her debut novel.

Louise writes for theatre, short film, audio drama, podcast, poetry and prose. Her plays have been performed at eight venues and her award-winning play, Grown Up Writin’, will be staged at The Customs House Theatre in September 2023. Her short play, Impulse, will also be performed in September 2023 at Live Theatre and her audio drama, The Pitmen Flappers, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra. Louise has written for three commissioned short films and a podcast, and is Writer in Residence 2023 at Josephine Butler College, Durham University. She has a PhD in English from Sheffield Hallam University, and her research into seventeenth-century twins has been published in domestic and international academic journals, edited collections and educational magazines.

Louise’s short memoir piece, ‘This Place Is Going to the Dogs’, was selected for publication in Kit de Waal’s acclaimed Common People anthology. She has been part of talent development schemes with the BFI, BBC, New Writing North and Blowin’ A Hooley Theatre Company, among others. Louise won the Sid Chaplin Northern Writers’ Award 2023 for the opening of her literary fiction debut novel.