Awards

Grants

Emma attracted Arts Council England funding in 2007, to create her one-woman performance piece ‘The Professor Vyle Show’ and to establish herself as a freelance writer and performance poet. She has also attracted ACE funding for work with Poets, Prattlers, and Pandemonialists to create a Black Country Broadsheet.

Slam Poetry

Emma has won the Solihull Slam, The Big Bilston Love Slam, the Nailsworth Poetry Festival slam, the Much Wenlock Poetry Festival Slam, and Shambala Festival Slam. She has on two occasions achieved 2nd place in the UK All Stars Poetry Slam at Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Competition wins, longlistings, shortlistings and commendations

In 2002, Emma was the winner of the Wolverhampton City Arts Festival Poetry Competition. She also won the Waterstones/Central Libraries ‘Write the Future’ competition with a short story. She had two poems shortlisted for the Belmont Children’s Poetry Competition in 2005 and was highly commended in the same competition in 2007. In 2012 Emma was shortlisted for the Mslexia Novel Writing Prize. Her poem ‘Christina Responds Badly to Poetry Criticism’ received the ‘Editor’s Commendation’ in the Pre-Raphaelite Society Poetry Competition. Emma was shortlisted for the Bare Fiction Flash Fiction Prize 2014, the Brighton Prize for Flash Fiction in 2016, and was a finalist in the Mslexia Flash Fiction Competition in 2017. In 2017 she won the international ‘Making Waves’ poetry competition which was judged by Luke Wright. Emma was commended in the Prole Laureate competition for 2018.

Her children’s collection, ‘I Once Knew a Poem Who Wore a Hat’ was the winner of the prestigious International Rubery Book Award (Poetry Section) in 2016.

Emma’s poetry has been selected on five separate occasions to be produced as ‘Poetry On Loan’ postcards. These postcards are distributed to libraries across the West Midlands.

In 2019 Emma was one of the writers chosen by Kit De Waal to be anthologized in ‘Common People’ (Unbound).

Also in 2019 Emma was chosen as the first ever Poet Laureate for the City of Wolverhampton.

In 2020 Emma was highly commended in the ‘Barn Owl Trust Poetry Competition’, runner up in the ‘Matchgirls Poetry Competition’, and was the winner of the ‘Matchgirls Flash Fiction Competition’.  Her work was also anthologized in the ‘Bloody Amazing’ anthology and by Culture Matters for ‘The Bread and Roses Poetry Award Anthology 2020’.

2021 saw Emma longlisted for the Mono Poetry Competition and highly commended in the Gloucestershire Poetry Society Open Poetry Competition. Emma also achieved third prize in the prestigious National Poetry Competition 2021 which received over 16,700 entries.