Annie Freud is a poet, artist and tutor.
She has four collections in print with Picador Poetry:
The Best Man That Ever Was – 2007 winner of the Dimplex Prize for New Writing
The Mirabelles – 2010 shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize
The Remains – 2015
Hiddensee – 2020
She is a fellow of the Royal Society of literature and was awarded the Cholmondeley Prize in 2025.
She is renowned for her live performances.
Elaine was born in London, then adopted by a family in Kent. She took an undergraduate degree in piano and composition at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. After working in the theatre, and as a film music composer via the National Film and TV School, she trained as a music therapist and worked for many years with children and adults with complex learning needs, later moving into part time academic posts, training and supervising arts therapists at GSMD. She currently works as a consultant music therapy supervisor.
Her first poetry pamphlet, Faber New Poets 13, was published n 2016. She was awarded a Veronica Powles Memorial Scholarship from Gladstone Library in 2017. and went on to develop her first full length collection – Sea Creature Regrows Entire Body. – published by Verve Poetry Press in 2021. Her poems have appeared in various publications, including the Bridport Prize Winners Anthology, The New European, and The Poetry Review. Her readings include Ledbury International Poetry Festival, Cambridge Literary Festival, Brasenose College, Oxford, Verve Poetry Festival, and most recently Poetry in Aldeburgh with Suffolk Punch.