Aoife Lyall (née Griffin) was born in Dublin in 1987. She earned her BA in English Studies from Trinity College Dublin, before reading her MPhil in Medieval Literature at St John’s, University of Cambridge, and gaining her PGDE (English) at the University of Aberdeen. She was awarded an Emerging Scottish Writer residency by Cove Park in 2020 and was twice shortlisted for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Awards. Her poems have also been shortlisted in the Wells Festival of Literature Open Poetry Competition and the Jane Martin Poetry Prize, the Bridport Prize and Highly Commended in the Forward Prize.
Her first collection, Mother, Nature, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2021 and was shortlisted for the Scottish First Book Award, one of Scotland's National Book Awards 2021. Her second collection, The Day Before, was published by Bloodaxe in 2024, and her third, Only Naked in the Light, is due from Bloodaxe in 2027.
She is Reviews Editor at Magma Poetry, and a Scottish Poetry Library Young Makar Mentor. Her work has inspired music, film, sculpture and artwork across the UK and Ireland, and focuses on queerness, motherhood, emigration, and legacy. She lives and works as a poet and a printmaker in the Scottish Highlands with her family.
