Helen’s experience as a Creative Writing tutor goes back to 1996 with adult education courses for Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education and the Oxford College for Further Education. As writer-in-residence at the Wordsworth Trust (2004-05) she gave writing workshops and master classes. As a Senior Lecturer in the English Department at Sheffield Hallam University she taught both Creative Writing and American Literature and created an inter-disciplinary module for undergraduates. Whilst at Sheffield, she also ran the Masters degree in Creative Writing. Moving to the Department of English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University, she taught a range of courses for undergraduates and postgraduates, convened the MA in Writing, supervised a number of Creative Writing PhD students specialising in poetry, and created and taught a module exploring 20th century American poetry. She has also been a Visiting Lecturer at Sewanee University, Tennessee, and spent six months at the University of New Hampshire as a Visiting Scholar.

Outside of academia, she has taught the Foyles Young Poets course at Arvon with Daljit Nagra. She has taught workshops and master classes at various literary festivals (eg Dartington, Cambridge, Ulverston), and schools (eg Ampleforth, Marlborough). She has also run a residential course for post-graduate Creative Writing students at Ty Newydd.

She has given readings at a wide variety of festivals and venues including Dartington, Cheltenham, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Kings Lynn, Ledbury, York, Bristol, Beverley, The South Bank Centre, The Wordsworth Trust (Grasmere) and Words by the Water (Keswick).

Helen is available for workshops and readings. She also offers one-to-one tutorials and manuscript assessments both privately and through the Poetry School. She is also an experienced judge of competitions.