Katie Ailes

Image credit: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

Katie is a passionate educator with extensive training and experience in working with students across ages, experience levels, and subjects

She holds a minor degree in Education from Bates College, where she worked as a Peer Writing Assistant and Teaching Assistant and coordinated after-school educational support programming in the local community. From 2016-21 she taught English and Creative Writing courses and supervised MLitt projects at the University of Strathclyde.

As the Director of Education at I Am Loud CIC, she coordinates regular creative writing and performance workshops across the UK and Europe for groups of various ages, sizes, and experience levels. She has delivered Loud Poets workshops for organisations including Le Rosey, Capital Theatres, Youth Theatre Arts Scotland, Aberdeen Performing Arts, Glasgow Life, Mix Up Theatre, StAnza, Paisley Book Festival, Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival, Gosforth Civic Theatre, and the Scottish Universities Summer School. She facilitates the Loud Poets Writing Club workshop and mentorship scheme. From 2020-21 she produced the Loud Poets: Return to Form digital workshop series, featuring eighteen free in-depth video workshops on poetic form (see the villanelle workshop linked below). Learn more about I Am Loud’s educational programming here.

Katie also works with poets as an editor and consultant. She is particularly experienced in working with spoken word poets to convey through format and typography some of the energy and tonal shifts of live performance. She has edited publications including Loud Poets: Volume I (2023), Sarah Grant’s Hero (Verve Poetry Press, 2024), Carly Brown’s Anastasia, Look in the Mirror (Stewed Rhubarb Press, 2020), and Bex Bidgood’s Poetry for Cows (2020).

To enquire about workshops, editing, or mentorship, please contact Katie here or email via kathryn.a.ailes (at) gmail.com.

We hired Katie for the purpose of introducing our senior students (aged 11-17) to a bit of writing during drama time, with the intention to create our own poems. Now getting teenagers, even creative minded ones, to write poetry is no small feat yet Katie handled it with ease. She is very passionate about language and words and so engaging that even the shyest pupil managed to come up with something! I can’t thank her enough for her knowledge and enthusiasm and she has made every workshop for our company enjoyable.—Mix Up Theatre