Rosie Garland

In 2018 she became inaugural Writer-in-Residence at The John Rylands Library, Manchester. In 2019 she was selected by Val McDermid, who had been asked by the National Centre for Writing and the British Council to choose ten writers to showcase the quality and breadth of LGBTQI+ writers working in the UK.

Her debut novel The Palace of Curiosities won the inaugural Mslexia Novel Competition in 2012 and was published by HarperCollins. This work is set in a Victorian freak show, where the central character Eve has hypertrichosis, a condition where the entire body is covered in hair. This was followed by a second novel, Vixen and a third novel The Night Brother, which is set in her adopted city of Manchester.

She has published seven solo collections of poetry. As a performance poet, she has often given readings as her alter-ego Rosie Lugosi, Lesbian Vampire Queen and has performed on the cabaret circuit in British troupe Lesburlesque. In 2001 she won the Performance Artist category in the Sexual Freedom Awards.

Rosie Garland (born 1960) is a British novelist, poet and singer with post-punk band The March Violets.

Born in London on 8 May 1960, as a baby she was adopted by her mother Mary Garland (née Metcalfe) and father William Garland, spending her childhood living in Hampshire, Somerset, Devon and Hertfordshire. In 1978, aged 18, she moved to Yorkshire to study at the University of Leeds, graduating with a BA Hons in English Special Studies and an MA (with distinction) in Medieval English Studies. In 1980 she joined The March Violets. During 1984-1986 she worked as an English Teacher in Sudan. From 2001 she was the victim of a stalker, with the 2007 court case featured as a lead article in the Manchester Evening News. In 2009 she was diagnosed with throat cancer and successfully treated at The Christie Hospital in Manchester.