Bio

Paul Maddern was born and raised in Bermuda and, since 2000, has lived in Co Down, Ireland.  He has a BA (Hons) in Film from Queen's University Ontario, and a MA (Poetry)and PhD from the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen's University Belfast. He taught at the Seamus Heaney Centre and was Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing with the University of Leeds for three years. Until recently, he was the owner-operator of the River Mill Writers Retreat in South Down.

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Paul has four publications with Templar Poetry, the latest being The Tipping Line (2018). For Lifeboat Press (Belfast) he edited the landmark anthology Queering the Green: Post-2000 Queer Irish Poetry (2021). His debut collection, The Beachcomber's Report, was shortlisted for the 2011 Shine/Strong award for Best First Collection (Ireland), and he is the first poet to win three Bermuda Government Literary Awards - presented every five years for work published in that time frame, and winning with The Beachcomber's Report, Pilgrimage, and The Tipping Line. He is the recipient of a SIAP, ACES, and Individuals's Emergency Resilience Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, as well as grants from the Ards and North Down Council and the Bermuda Arts Council. In 2023 he was a James Merrill House Writing Fellow.  His poem, 'Effacé', is studied on the Northern Irish GCSE syllabus. 

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He is completing his next collection (working title. Other Matters Others) and has started translations of, and responses to, the French poet Jules Supervielle.