Pratibha Castle

Pratibha Castle, at various times a holistic therapist and workshop facilitator, singer, hippy, was born in Dublin and now lives in West Sussex. Though she received some acclaim as a writer at the age of nine, winning a Cadbury’s essay competition, also writing, directing and acting in a school play aged ten, she only turned to writing as an adult at the age of 60, prompted by her mother’s death.

She graduated from Chichester University with a first-class honours degree in English and Creative Writing, studying further on their Creative Writing MA. Joint winner of the Hedgehog Press Nicely Folded Paper Competition 2019, her work appears in Agenda, Dreich, The Honest Ulsterman, Saraswati, Reach, The Blue Nib, Words for the Wild, Bonnie’s Crew, Panoply, Poetry and All That Jazz, Fly on the Wall, Lothlorien Journal.

Winner of the NADFAS poetry competition age range 13 – 17, 2009, she was Highly Commended in the Sentinel Literary Journal Competition January 2021, Storytown 2020 Poetry Competition, and Hedgehog Press Competition, Postcards from the Hedge: A Bestiary of the Night. She has been longlisted and shortlisted in additional poetry competitions, including the Brian Dempsey Memorial Competition and her work appears in various anthologies. She is a regular reader on Wilts Radio, The Poetry Place. Pratibha loves birds, but has a hard time with the heron who swoops in at dawn, in the hope of dining on her carp.