Matt Sowerby is an environmental writer, campaigner and producer from Cumbria. His current writing project Oil and Water explores ‘thinking-with’ whales as a path towards better understanding petroleum. More broadly, Matt’s writing navigates emotion around climate change, and he is particularly interested in Environmental Hope.
As a poet, Matt was a 2018 National Youth Slam Champion and 2023 Uni-Slam Champion. He has performed in the Houses of Parliament and on BBC Radio 3, and his work was exhibited by the United Nations in 2022. Matt is also the Director of Kirkby Lonsdale Poetry Festival, the first of which took place in 2022.
Matt joined the climate movement through Fridays For Future in 2019. He is now the Climate Action Lead for the National Trust’s North England Advisory Group. Matt is a Carbon Literacy Trainer at Cumbria Action for Sustainability, and also works for The Resilience Project, a youth-led nonprofit supporting the mental health of climate activists. He is a Climate Psychology Alliance-certified Climate Cafe Facilitator.
In recent years Matt has begun to experiment with other creative outlets, including curation. He has a particular interest in Natural History collections, and is the Reinterpretation Lead for Kendal Museum’s World Wildlife Gallery.
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Matt Sowerby at Manchester School Strike 4 Climate. Image by Zachary Hill.
Matt Sowerby, portrait image by Tom Staveley