Sheila Lockhart chooses to think of herself as a poet these days. She’s lived on the Black Isle since 1989, having moved slowly northwards from her London birthplace, stopping off on the way for fifteen years in Edinburgh. In that time she was an art historian and a social worker, taking up writing after she retired.

She studied Creative Writing with the Open University and likes to indulge in online workshops and real-life courses at Moniack Mhor, where she also convenes the Moniack Poets, who meet up at Moniack Mhor once a month. 

She has been published online and in magazines and anthologies, including Northwords Now, The Ekphrastic Review, Twelve Rivers (Journal of the Suffolk Poetry Society, of which she’s a member), Alchemy Spoon, and Dreich.

Her poem ‘You Are Here’ (see below) was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2022. As a former art historian, Sheila has a particular interest in ekphrastic poetry. She also writes about the natural environment, the lives of women, and about loss and bereavement.

Her debut pamphlet Brother, which reflects on the mental illness and death of her brother, is published in November 2023 by V.Press.