Andrew McMillan

Andrew McMillan’s debut collection physical was the first ever poetry collection to win The Guardian First Book Award. The collection also won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, a Somerset Maugham Award (2016), an Eric Gregory Award (2016) and a Northern Writers’ award (2014). It was shortlisted the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2016, the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Roehampton Poetry Prize and the Polari First Book Prize. It was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Autumn 2015. In 2019 it was voted as one of the top 25 poetry books of the past 25 years by the Booksellers Association. Most recently physical has been translated into Norwegian (Aschehoug, 2017), a bi-lingual French edition, Le Corps Des Hommes (Grasset, 2018) and Galician (A Chan da Polvora, 2019). His second collection, playtime, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2018; it was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Autumn 2018, a Poetry Book of the Month in both The Observer and The Telegraph, a Poetry Book of the Year in The Sunday Times and won the inaugural Polari Prize. He is senior lecturer at the Manchester Writing School at MMU and lives in Manchester.

Research expertise

Masculinity, Sexuality, The Body, Contemporary British and American Poetry

Publications
Books (authored/edited/special issues)
A. McMillan (2018). Playtime. Jonathan Cape.

A. McMillan (2018). Le Corps Des Hommes. Editions Grasset.

A. McMillan (2017). Fysisk. Aschehoug.

A. McMillan (2015). Best British Poetry 2015. R. Lumsden, E. Berry. Salt.

A. McMillan (2015). Physical. Jonathan Cape.

A. McMillan (2013). Protest of the Physical. Red Squirrel Press.

A. McMillan (2011). The Moon is a Supporting Player. Red Squirrel Press.

A. McMillan (2009). Every Salt Advance.

Journal articles
A. McMillan (2018). I know that men can mistake: Andrew McMillan on Tom Paulin’s Love’s Bonfire, the dash and poetic authority. The Poetry Review. 108(1),

A. McMillan (2016). Poets reading: After Orlando – Andrew McMillan reads new poets from the US. The Poetry Review. 106(3), pp.39-42.

A. McMillan (2015). ’Growing up Gay and the Books that Helped Me’. The Independent.

A. McMillan, K. Pahl (2015). Writing out the loss: intersections and conversations. Argument and Critique.

Chapters in books
A. McMillan (2017). One of Us: Some thoughts on Sexuality and the Working Class. In: Know Your Place: Essays on the Working Class by the Working Class. Dead Ink Books,

A. McMillan ’if it wasn’t for the nights’. R. Lumdsen, A. Warner. In: The Best British Poetry 2013. Salt Publishing,

A. McMillan (2014). ’just because I do this doesn’t mean’ et al. P. Sansom, A. Sansom. In: Cast: The Poetry Business Book of New Poets.

A. McMillan (2011). ’Nabakov’s Butterflies’ et al. R. Lumsden. In: The Salt Book of Younger Poets.

Conferences
A. McMillan I am made by her, and undone: the absence of the mother in the poetry of Thom Gunn. Umeå University, Sweden, 11/6/2015.

A. McMillan ‘A plausible poetry: considering the danger of a homogenised poetic voice emerging from Creative Writing courses’,. Imperial College London, 28/6/2014.

A. McMillan Poetic Collage- the seemingly unconnected image and the pursuit of truth through non-narrative means. Royal Holloway, University of London, 16/5/2014.

A. McMillan ‘Afraid of the strength of my own health’: The fear of AIDS and the courage to combat it in the poetry of Thom Gunn. University of Kent, 9/5/2014.

A. McMillan ‘Walking Back to Words: poetry with people living with aphasia’,. Wellcome Trust, 18/5/2013.

Other
A. McMillan The Echo Chamber.

A. McMillan Language as Talisman.

A. McMillan My Hero: Thom Gunn. The Guardian.

A. McMillan The time of day it really is.

A. McMillan the centre cannot hold.

A. McMillan The Slap Author Gets Shorty, review of Christos Tsiolkas’ Merciless Gods. The Independent.

Awards, Honours & Distinctions
Prizes and awards
Won

Somerset Maugham Award, Society of Authors (2016)
Eric Gregory Award, Society of Authors (2016)
Guardian First Book Award (2015)
Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize (2015)
Northern Writers' Award, New Writing North, (2014)
Shortlisted

Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year (2016)
International Dylan Thomas Prize (2016)
Forward Prize for Best First Collection (2015)
Costa Poetry Award (2015)
Roehampton Poetry Prize (2015)
Polari First Book Prize (2015)
Expert reviewer for external funding bodies
AHRC Peer Review College, 2017 -