Edwin Stockdale was the first person to be awarded a PhD in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Leeds Trinity University. He also has an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction from the University of Birmingham. From this poet widely published in the UK, this debut collection, Winter Wolf, is about the bisexual medieval monarch Edward II. The research and writing of it was funded by Arts Council England through the Developing Your Creative Practice fund. Scholarly articles on his practice-based research have appeared in Writing in Practice and in two book chapters for Routledge: Prose Poetry in Theory and Practice (2022) and Ekphrastic Approaches in Twenty-First Century Poetry: Writing Out (2026). He has articles forthcoming in New Writing and Life Writing. At the time of writing, he is Research Fellow at the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies and Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University. He is currently studying for an MA in Creative Non-Fiction at the University of East Anglia.

‘Edwin Stockdale’s poems are alive and utterly haunting. History is resurrected in this collection, full of earth and desire and absolute precision. Think of Hilary Mantel meeting Derek Jarman, of Christopher Marlowe going hand-in-hand with Thom Gunn, and you’ll have something of the tenor of this brilliant, striking collection of poems.’

 

—Seán Hewitt

 

‘Winter Wolf wears its research lightly, steps through history to deliver us Edward, Piers and Isabella as breathing human beings living with, and battling their desires and duties inside the constraints of their time and stations. Stockdale tells and connects with their story, drawing flesh on bones with animate imagination, brightly focussed imagery and precise and often opulent language. This is an utterly engrossing page-turner of a poetry book.’

 

—Helen Ivory

 

‘Edwin Stockdale has made this form of urgent, vibrant historical poetry his own. A distinctive voice, bringing a hallucinatory clarity to the past in a way that brings us face to face with people who feel real, breathing and present. The concise and elegant lines are precisely crafted and set with images at perfect angles, but this is also earthy, vivid stuff and I can think of no greater guide to Edward II’s fascinating and often misrepresented life than Stockdale. A compelling story, a hypnotising sequence of poems and an act of reclamation from centuries of prejudice. His finest work so far.’

 

—Luke Kennard

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