Katie Ailes

Dr. Katie Ailes is a poet, educator, producer, academic, and dancer based in Edinburgh. Originally from Pennsylvania, she moved to Scotland in 2014 on a Fulbright Award and has devoted her career to supporting and innovating within the Scottish live literature scene. Katie is an acclaimed spoken word poet whose work explores themes of identity, migration, and compassion through a fiercely feminist lens. She has performed her poetry at festivals across the UK and Europe including Prague Fringe, Brighton Fringe, StAnza, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and nine runs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 2023 she was the Glastonbury Festival Poet in Residence. Her poetry has been published widely and her poem ‘Outwith’ was chosen as one of the Scottish Poetry Library’s Best of the Best Scottish Poems in 2019.