Rachael Matthews was born near Sheffield and grew up on a housing estate in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. Her ancestors were steel workers and circus performers. A former BBC Radio journalist and newsreader in London, she re-trained as a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, via a Masters Degree in Creative Writing and a PhD at Sussex University exploring trauma and creativity. For the past several years she has worked as a clinician at a non-profit therapy centre in New York City, where she has lived for a decade with her wife, and more recently their baby daughter. Her poems have been widely published during that time, winning prizes in a number of major UK competitions.
