LEDBURY Poetry Festival has announced the new Herefordshire Poet in Residence for 2017

She is Fiona Sampson, who was awarded an MBE for services to literature in the New Year’s Honours List.

When hearing of her appointment as Poet in Residence, Fiona said: "Every conversation, every meeting, will also be a chance for me to find out more about the county I’m proud to call my home.”

She said of her MBE: "I’m truly honoured, and especially grateful for this sign that literature remains of relevance to the wider community - something that I believe passionately.

"What an encouragement to keep on writing and working.”

Fiona has received numerous national and international awards for her writing, and has published twenty-seven books to date. She is at work on a new biography of Mary Shelley to mark the bicentenary of Frankenstein's appearance and a book about landscapes and people in Limestone Country.

She is also an internationally-recognised editor, set up the first international poetry festival in Wales, and pioneered the development of writing in health care in the UK. She now directs the international Poetry Centre at the University of Roehampton.

Fiona lives near Holme Lacy and says, “Herefordshire landscapes are full of layered remains of forgotten settlements – and I’ve always loved “reading” the shapes of fields and settlements for such memories. Their ghostly “inhabitants” are already sleepwalking into my poems.

"But I also love present-day Herefordshire, which is genuinely friendlier and more relaxed than anywhere I’ve lived before.”

Chloe Garner, Ledbury Poetry Festival artistic director says, “Get in touch with Ledbury Poetry Festival is you would like to arrange an event or workshop with Fiona Sampson; and expect the unexpected."