Accolades
Leah has been placed and short-listed in various competitions and prizes for her poetry, flash fiction and short stories.
Recent Success
Leah was Commended in the Troubadour International Poetry Competition 2024. She is also a Pushcart Prize Nominee (2022/23) for her poem High Priestess. She has also been recently long-listed for the Fly On the Wall's, Aryamati Prize 2023.
Her poem 'The Zoo in my Cellar" was one of five winning poems in the 'Wonky Animals' competition 2024 (Candlestick Press). You can buy a copy HERE.
Her poem House Without Walls was Commended in the Magma Poetry Competition 2021/22. Her poems have also appeared in New Welsh Review (June 2022) and Alchemy Spoon (May 2022) and Ink, Sweat & Tears (2018 & 2021).
Leah was also one of 200 short-listed poets selected out of 13,000 global entries to be named for the "Wimbledon of poetry competitions", the National Poetry Competition 2015.
Five of her poems and a short piece of fiction were short-listed for the prestigious Bridport Prize 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018.
Her poem “Jackdaw” was published by the Poetry Society's Poetry News in Autumn 2016 and subsequently short-listed for the Anne Born Prize 2017. Judge and award-winning poet, Helen Farish said: "Leah's poem understands the importance of pace. A fast-talking, witty and imaginative poem which successful sustains the opening conceit. It makes use of cinematic imagery and has a fresh take on the theme".
The Cake Mixture won joint second place in the Poetry Society's Stanza Competition 2018. Judged by Penelope Shuttle who said of her poem: "In this poem, a homage to the Turkish poet, Edip Cansever, we are in a darker space. The ingredients placed into the mixing bowl, are implacable and unusual, creating a profound sense of unease. We are told that the cake maker is ‘a woman searching for/emptiness of being’ but the more items, tangible and intangible, that she puts in the bowl, the less she finds herself reaching that emptiness of being. It is her life experience she is putting in the bowl; through well-judged nuance, strong use of form, and a measured pace, the poem lets us understand that this cake will never make it to oven or table. Thought-provoking, lyrical, disturbing, and yet bewitching, this is a message from a strange kitchen indeed."
Leah was long-listed for the Women's Poetry Competition 2018 by Poetry Book Society & Mslexia, judged by Carol Ann Duffy.
She then went on to become the runner-up in the Women's Poetry Competition 2019 by Poetry Book Society & Mslexia. Judge, Malika Booker said: "Gold Divers’ feels mythical, fresh and strange. I was completely seduced by this epic and folkloric sequence."
She was long-listed for the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2019, The Emma Press Poetry Pamphlet Competition 2020 and long-listed for Mslexia's Women's Poetry Competition 2021.
Performances
Leah has performed at Afterbirth Poetry Festival (London, 2019) and events hosted by Magma, Candlestick Press, PsychCreative, Cafe Writers, Volta, Jurnets and other open-mic events in Norwich.