Hilary Menos was born in Luton in 1964. She studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Wadham College, Oxford, then worked as a food journalist and restaurant critic in London before moving to Devon to renovate a Domesday Manor and muck about with farm animals. Between 2004 and 2011 she set up and ran Beenleigh Manor Organics, a 100 acre organic farm near Totnes, with her husband, actor/director and musician Andy Brodie. She has four sons aged 19, 17, 15 and five.

She has won or been placed in numerous competitions including the Mslexia Poetry Competition, BBC Wildlife Magazine Poet of the Year, the Buxton Poetry Competition and the Envoi Poetry Competition. She was one of five first stage winners of The Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition 2004 and her pamphlet, Extra Maths, is published by Smith/Doorstop Books. She was one of 17 poets featured in the Oxford Poets 2007 Anthology published by Carcanet.

Her first collection, Berg, was published by Seren Books in 2009 and won the Forward Poetry Best First Collection 2010. Her pamphlet, Wheelbarrow Farm, was one of four winners of the Templar Poetry Pamphlet and Collection Competition 2010.

She also reviews poetry pamphlets for Sphinx Magazine published by HappenStance. Read reviews here

Read 'Why Poetry?' in the Oxford Poets 2007 Anthology here

Read about the experience of having a pamphlet published here