Penny Simpson is an author, researcher, creative health practitioner, mentor and lecturer. Her writing and her creative research projects explore the relationship between the arts and human rights, and creativity and well-being, subjects inspired by her work as a journalist with organisations including the BBC, British Council, NHS and Arts Council Wales.
Her publications include two novels and a collection of short stories. Her short fiction has appeared in many anthologies and literary journals including Best of European Fiction, Mslexia, The Lonely Crowd and GREY magazine. Recent short fiction has been Long-listed for the 2024 Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction, Highly Commended in the 2023 Bath Short Story Award and long listed for the 2021 V.S. Pritchett Short Story Award. She is the recipient of an Arts Council of Wales New Writers Bursary and a Hawthornden Fellowship. In 2016, she was awarded a scholarship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to study for a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Essex.
Since 2023, Penny has been creative writing lead with WISE (Wellness Improvement Service) a project co-funded by NHS and Arts Council Wales. She created The House of Dreams and Memories for WISE, a series of inter-linked workshops inspired by Bachelard’s idea of space as a ‘geography of echoes.’ The workshops support patients living with chronic pain and long-term health conditions.
