Abigail Ottley
Poet, Writer & Original Founding Member of Cornwall’s Mor Poets Collective
Abigail Ottley is a prize-winning poet based in Penzance in Cornwall. She writes poetry, prose poetry, and some short fiction with occasional forays into creative non-fiction, where she writes mainly about women's issues and experience. Her work of this kind has appeared in Aspier Magazine, The Survivor Zine and in the FiLiA Conference magazine for 2025, Where Feminism Finds Itself.
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Abigail's collection Out of Eden (Yaffle Press, 2025) celebrates the strength and resilience of working class women and draws on the histories of the women of her own family across five generations. At the time of writing, she is grateful and proud to have been published in more than 300 journals, magazines and anthologies. This would have seemed to her an impossible achievement a dozen or so years ago when she first, very tentatively, styled herself a writer and a poet. Abigail would like to thank both her readers and her editors, past and present,for their support and encouragement and for allowing her to do the thing she most loves.
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Connect with Abigail at www.abigailottleywriting.com, via email, Facebook, or Instagram.
ACHIEVEMENTS
COMPETITIONS
3rd
In the 2024 International Patricia Eschen Award, third prize was awarded to Abigail Ottley, for her poem ‘Aged twenty-nine, she buys her first running shoes’ about which Katrina says “The poet takes us on several journeys, journeys of learning and of metaphor. I found myself running alongside, willing the narrator on.”
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Find the audio version on my Writing page.
Abigail with Penzance poet, Katrina Naomi
Abigail Ottley, a former English teacher and now full time writer and poet living in Penzance, won this national competition in 2024 with with a poem titled ‘Taking Care’ about her mother. The runners up were Thea Smiley, Ama Bolton and Tracy Davidson.
1st
2nd
Abigail's Winning Piece
Abigail's award-winning prose poem, 'A survivor dreams a new career', which won 2nd place in the the International Plaza Prose Poem competition of 2024, judged by Carrie Etter.
Abigail's Award-winning Prose
NOTABLE CONTRIBUTIONS
Speaker at FiLiA Women's Conference, Brighton
Contributor in support of 'Behind The Looking Glass' animated documentary made by Vaishnavi Sundar at Lime Soda Films.
PUBLICATIONS
Abigail's writing has been published in over 300 journals, magazines, and anthologies, including: Dodging the Rain, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Impspired, and Lit Shark, The High Window, The Lake, Steel Jackdaw, and Atrium. Her writing has been highly praised.
300 + Journal, Magazine, and Anthology Features
What's New?
Ultimately empowering in its flinty, uncompromising portrait of female survival, resilience and love.
Dr Rosie Jackson
​A wealth of experience… connecting us to the realities of life and womanhood.
Clare Dwyer
A collection that asks: Who am I? Who are we? Who could I have been?
Holly Bars