Sally Read (born 1971 inSuffolk[1]) is a British poet and writer and former psychiatric nurse.[2]
Sally Read attended Tavistock Comprehensive School. She received a BA fromOpen University and then an MA from theUniversity of South Dakota.[3]
Read shared theEric Gregory Award in 2001.[4] Her first collection,The Point of Splitting, was shortlisted for the Jerwood-Aldeburgh First Collection prize. A selection of her works,Punto di Rottura, is also available in Italian.[5] Her poems have been anthologized in numerous volumes, including "Roddy Lumsden'sIdentity Parade[6] and Forward'sPoems of the Decade.[7] Read's first collection of poetry since her conversion,Dawn of this Hunger took first place for poetry at the Catholic Media Association Awards in 2022.[8]She has also written for the Times Literary Supplement, The Catholic Herald, The Tablet, The Humanum Review and Magnificat among other periodicals and papers. Read has also published two memoirs:Night's Bright Darkness (2016) (see below) andThe Mary Pages (2024), which was awarded best biography in the 2025 Association of Catholic Publishers awards.[9] Read's bookAnnunciation was the subject of a short film[10] for EWTNGB by Norman Servais and Kevin Turley. She is editor of Word on Fire's100 Great Catholic Poems (Nov 2023)
A lifelong atheist, Read converted toCatholicism in 2010.[11][12] She wrote a book about her conversion experience,Night's Bright Darkness.[13]
Read was poet in residence from 2011-2021 at The Hermitage of the Three Holy Hierarchs, which is an eparchial-rite form of consecrated life under the jurisdiction of BishopBryan Bayda, the Eparch ofUkrainian Catholic Eparchy of Saskatoon.[14] Fr. Gregory Hrynkiw, of the group, played a role in her conversion. Read's role in the hermitage continues, as a member.
Read lives with her husband and daughter (Celia Florence, to whom her book “Annunciation: A Call to Faith in a Broken World” is dedicated) inSanta Marinella.[14]
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