---
title: "Ruth O'Callaghan, poet"
url: "https://ruthocallaghan.com"
updated: 2026-10-12
description: "Ruth O'Callaghan is a London poet, mentor and workshop leader, with seventeen collections and the Camden and Lumen poetry readings."
---

# Ruth O'Callaghan

Poet, mentor, editor and workshop leader in London. Since 2008 she has hosted the Camden and Lumen poetry readings, which raise money for homeless shelters.

[Her books](/books)

![Ruth O'Callaghan, seated on a patterned sofa](https://alftyk7urukjxizc.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/ruth-ocallaghan/ruth_ocallaghan_poet1-j6wArez1goHtnsr93kgWQ804RPYC5g.jpg)

Ruth O'Callaghan has published seventeen collections of poetry, the latest _Threads_ (Two Rivers Press, 2026). Her poems have been translated into six languages, and she has read them in Europe, Asia and the United States.

She is a Hawthornden Fellow, has twice held the Heinrich Böll residency on Achill Island, and in 2009 went to Mongolia with an Arts Council award to work with Mongolian women poets. She mentors poets, leads workshops, judges competitions and interviews other poets.

[More about Ruth](/about)

- **17** — Collections of poetry
- **6** — Languages her poems are translated into
- **2008** — First Camden and Lumen reading

![The cover of Threads](https://alftyk7urukjxizc.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/ruth-ocallaghan/9781915048349-CHWSauv3mhH2oF95UwKe3uEb8O5vnk.jpg)

## Threads, her newest collection

Two Rivers Press published _Threads_ in May 2026. Its poems address both the personal and the political, some through irony and some through metaphor.

[About the book](/books/threads)

> These are poems that confront the worst that life has to show and to tell us with a dedication to truths most of us never have the courage to face up to.
>
> — Anne Stevenson, on Vortices

## Readings, workshops and mentoring

Write to Ruth about a reading, a workshop, or help with a collection.

[Contact Ruth](/contact)