STEPMOTHER

‘Brave, graceful and absolutely vital — Mort shoulders away the old trope of the stepmother and replaces her with a host of humane women who undertake the complicated, skillful, often powerless work of loving children. All the difficulties, privileges and rewards of remade families are in this collection; so is extraordinary sorority amid the minefields’ * Sarah Hall, author of HELM *
‘We’re familiar with art as an ‘act of love’ but sometimes it’s also an act of life, of living itself; a book that must be written in order to live. In this utterly remarkable collection, Helen Mort builds a home, and a skin: a shape-shifting, porous house in which the poet, and everyone she loves, might live in the fullest sense of the word’ * Caroline Bird, author of THE AIR YEAR *
‘After becoming a stepmother herself, Helen Mort begins to question the narrative about their supposed ‘wickedness’. Whether retelling fairytales or analysing contemporary porn, I was enchanted by her blend of generous lyric and furious cultural critique. A spell for seeing differently’ * Clare Pollard, author of THE MODERN FAIRIES *

Helen Mort has published three collections of poetry:

• Division Street (2013), winner of the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize
• No Map Could Show Them (2016)
• The Illustrated Woman (2022)

Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Forward, T. S. Eliot, and Costa Prizes.

She has also written:

• A novel, Black Car Burning (2019)
• A short story collection, Exire (2019)

Her creative non-fiction includes:

• A Line Above The Sky (2022), winner of the Boardman Tasker Award
• Ethel (2024)

Helen Mort is a Professor in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and lives in Sheffield.

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