Dr Siobhan Campbell

Professional biography

I am an Irish poet and researcher in Creative Writing Practice working within a poetics of Social Literary Interventions and Arts Based Research.  Educated at University College Dublin and at Lancaster University, I also pursued post-graduate study at NYU and the New School, New York. I joined the OU from Kingston University London where I was Associate Professor in English Literature and Creative Writing. I am the author of five collections of poetry and co-editor of the first commissioned book of essays on the work of Eavan Boland.  I collaborate with other artists on community-based arts projects including Art at the Heart of the Peninsula (Peace IV-funded) and the British Council's Peace and Beyond project.  My work has received awards in the National Poetry Competition and the Troubadour International Competition and is the recipient of an Arts Council award and the Templar Poetry Prize. I publish regularly in the literary journals of the US and the UK/Ireland including Poetry and The Hopkins Review (US) and Agenda and Magma Poetry (UK). I appear in the canonical anthologies of the past two decades including Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe), Women’s Work: Modern Women Poets writing in English (Seren) and The Field Day Anthology of Irish Literature (NYU Press).

Research interests

Current research projects include Knowledge Transfer Partnerships with NHS Trusts in the Tees Valley and with Verbal Arts, Northern Ireland. Ongoing work with NGOs in Lebanon, funded partly through UNHCR, co-creates writing-based supports for human rights activists and social workers.

As a poet, I explore the place of the political poem in contemporary poetics and am interested in generating situations for the socially engaged poem to arise within new ethical frameworks that problematise perceived personal/political divides.

My research, in tandem with the mission of The Open University, combines social engagement and a poetics of activism. Emerging from my post-conflict poetry, and my research into creative writing with military veterans in the UK and USA, I developed Creative Expressive Writing methodologies that now form the basis of training programmes in several countries including Iraq and Lebanon and are in use with NHS frontline health workers. My workshop practices expand the range and possibilities of arts-based interventions and are designed to be sustainable and replicable, allowing their use even in contested arenas.

Projects, partnering with co-researchers in a variety of organisations, look at how participatory practice can enable participants to recognise their own personal potential as well as their potential for creating cultural cohesion.  Partners include UNDP, Iraq, Participation and Practice of Rights, Northern Ireland, North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust, The Royal Trinity Hospice, London, and Beyond Borders, Scotland.

Selected Recent Publications:

Campbell, Siobhan (2026). Participatory Poetries Against Othering—Creative Writing and Social Literary Practice with Displaced Women in Lebanon. Humanities, 15(6), article no. 75.

Campbell, Siobhan and McEvoy, Mel (2026). Creating Space for NHS Voices – Creative writing with Frontline Healthcare Workers in the NHS: How emergent collective poems establish new ways of evaluation. Writing in Education, 97 pp. 52–57.

Campbell, Siobhan and Jensen, Meg (2025). Expressive writing and telling and participatory action research: developing a relational ethics of practice for story-based interventions in crisis settings. Journal of Poetry Therapy, 38(3) pp. 259–272.

King, Edmund G. C.; Haslam, Sara and Campbell, Siobhan (2025). Healing through Books: An Introduction. In: Campbell, Siobhan; Haslam, Sara and King, Edmund G. C. eds. A Hundred Years of Bibliotherapy: Healing through Books. London, UK: Routledge, pp. 1–26.

Teaching interests

I have been privileged to supervise English Literature and Creative Writing theses at MA, MFA and PhD levels. Interests include poetic ekphrasis, the stylistic and ethical considerations around life-writing/memoir and contemporary poetries and poetics. I have supported many student writers towards publication across a range of creative practice including poetry, eco-critical post-apocalyptic fantasy and the re-working of folklore and legend into stories that speak ‘truth to power’.

Recent Open Learn courses include ‘Crime fiction and the psychology of our relationship with villains’Collaborating with Open Psychology Research Centre; Co-written with Professor Zoe Walkington and Dr. Graham Pike. and  ‘What happens to you when you read’ An ECW collaboration Co-written with Professor Zoe Walkington, Dr. Graham Pike, Professor Sara Haslam, Dr. Edmund King

Consistently engaged by the development of pedagogies which support a diverse range of distance students, I am actively working on the creation of materials for new level one courses and involved in planning a further interation of the OU MA in Creative Writing.

I am glad to hear from prospective students who wish to explore possible critical-creative projects at the above contact email.

External collaborations

Funded Projects