Biography

Elizabeth Rimmer was born and educated in Liverpool in 1954, and moved to Scotland in 1977, where she has lived since, apart from six months in Sri Lanka in 1981. She lived for forty years in Cambuskenneth, on the banks of the Forth, where she brought up children, gained the degree of MLitt at Stirling University, worked for several years in the university Chaplaincy, ran Stirling and District Youth Theatre for three very eventful years, served on the Community Council and eventually became a writer. In 2021 she moved to Glasgow to be near her disabled daughter, whose principal carer she has been since 2002.

She is widely published in magazines, anthologies and online and has published four full collections of poetry with Red Squirrel Press. She has appeared at several poetry festivals, including StAnza and The Wee Gaitherin in Stonehaven.

Full Collections Wherever We Live Now (2011)
The Territory of Rain (2015)
Haggards (2018)
The Well of the Moon (2021)
Other Publications
The Charm of Nine Herbs translation from Old English (2017)
Charms for the Healing of Grief (2023) artbook in collaboration with Hugh Bryden of Roncadora Press.

Her work has been translated into Gaelic, French and Arabic. Sculpture inspired by it was installed on the Poetry Path at Corbenic. One of her poems, Blanket Bog, featured in an installation at Inverewe and was briefly displayed on the side of a bus in Edinburgh.

She is an established reviewer, writing for The Glasgow Review of Books and Northwords Now, and has edited many poetry collections for Red Squirrel Press.

Her work is influenced by her medieval studies, and includes translations from Latin, Old English and Old Norse. She is interested in herbs, Permaculture, Geopoetics, folklore and folk music, and in the Christian mystical and contemplative traditions, and teaching about non-violence. She is actively concerned, and sometimes writes about refugee issues and migration, violence against women, CND and environmental issues.