About

Francesca Teal is a writer from Halifax, West Yorkshire. She holds a BA in German, Spanish and Ukrainian from Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. She has worked in broadcast journalism, historical research for narrative non-fiction, film production, and publishing. She is currently studying for a Master’s in Creative Writing at Kellogg College, University of Oxford.

Her published work includes the healing power of a park in Oxford Magazine, Ukrainian summer solstice in The Ash, the world of work as a post-grad in Bitter Melon Review, the dreams of a footballing Yorkshire lad in The Vanity Papers, and a past relationship in reverse in Ghost Light Lit.

‘Summer’s End’, an unsettling short story inspired by Louise Bourgeois’ sculpture, Lady in Waiting (2003), was published by The Ekphrastic Review.

In 2024, her short story about a young woman’s yearning for a life outside rural 1940s Naples, titled ‘The Swallow’s Song’, was a runner-up in the Oxfordshire Libraries’ eBook Short Story Competition.

Francesca’s poem ‘Red Skies’ won the Sunflower Stories Competition in June 2025, which responded to an exhibition at the Taylor Institution Library of artworks created by war-displaced Ukrainian children. It will be featured in a forthcoming issue of the UK’s leading magazine on Ukrainian literature and art, The Black Sea Whale.