“Penny Pepper’s work is a virtuoso display of wit, invention and courage. It’s thought provoking and funny and moving and makes us see the world differently.”

— Dame Margaret Drabble

Welcome to my website.

Many of you know me as an author and a poet across many genres. Some of you know me as a disabled activist and that is part of my story too which goes back a long way to my beginnings as a punk era poet.

I look at stories we haven’t heard, and I like to unravel topics, such as difference, inequality and identity. My work has been called versatile and genre-defying and told I encourage others to see life differently with humour and wisdom.

My memoir First in the World Somewhere was published by Unbound and a poetry collection Come Home Alive with Burning Eye Books. I’m delighted to be a winning finalist for the International Hemingway Shorts 2021 Competition - my story appears in the 2021 anthology.

My work is looked after by The Good Literary Agency under the wing of Abi Fellows. My champions include Sunday Times best-selling novelist Jake Arnott,  ground- breaking actor Liz Carr and literary heavyweight Dame Margaret Drabble.

I’ve been published in all sorts of places - Mslexia, The Guardian, Digital Spy, Aurora Metro, Access, Huffington Post, Myriad, Lumpen. I also write monthly for Byline Times

Then there’s the many podcasts, not forgetting my guest slots on Sky News, BBC Newsnight, Five Live, Woman’s Hour, the Victoria Derbyshire Show, Breakfast - and more than I can remember!

Spoken word performances have taken place as far as New York - and include The Royal Albert Hall, The Royal Festival Hall and the international festival of WOMAD where I headlined on a Saturday evening.

My home is in St Leonard’s on Sea, part of lively creative Hastings on the sunny Sussex coast. My partner is Kev, whose family go back to 1700s in these parts, and I have a cheeky adorable black cat called Pixie.

Punk is my raw beginning - where it all began

It saw my writing find a raging home in early fanzines. It fired a freedom in me to start accepting myself, that I was OK as a human being, as a woman, as a creative, who could challenge the categories imposed upon me. It is the energy that triggered my activism, and my passion for social justice and equality.

I’m Naked because I strive to be open in my writing, to show what needs to be shown. Stories that strip away stereotype and expectation. Stories that subvert and maybe challenge, in the same way I provoke when I’ve posed naked – literally – for artists and photographers, and when I’ve performed burlesque. To draw an audience into a nakedness, to share the fun and the message: accept yourself, accept a new story.

As The Naked Punk, I’ll always be on this bumpy journey. I don’t have answers and it’s not easy – but through my work I’ll enjoy sharing punky naked questions along the way.

A heartfelt, funny and touching performance - Lost In Spaces. Penny Pepper managed simultaneously to touch her audience, make them laugh and think. To feel things that are important.

Female Arts ****

This is a revolutionary book (Desires Reborn) that will at once turn you on, change your thinking, make you laugh, cry, and most of all realise that this kind of fiction is so long overdue its almost criminal.

Mat Fraser - Criptales, His Dark Materials (Award winning Actor / Writer)

This really is a modern day classic (Desires Reborn) … A real miss-your-stop-on-the-tube-because-you’re-too-busy-thinking-covert-thoughts type of book.

Rob Young - Miranda, Midsummer Nights Dreaming (Award-winning writer)