It was only last year that the Scottish poet Donna Ashworth was given a publishing contract. Now the 48-year-old has ended 2023 with five of her books in the Top 20 poetry chart – three of them, including Wild Hope and I Wish I Knew, in the top five.
Nearly 70,000 of her hardback books have been bought this year – anthologies that have reached out to a new generation, won over by her poems about life and its vicissitudes. Ashworth also has 1 million Facebook followers and 200,000 reading her poems on Instagram.
