Kate Tempest (born Kate Esther Calvert, 22 December 1985) is an English spoken word performer, poet, recording artist, novelist and playwright. In 2013, she won the Ted Hughes Award for her work Brand New Ancients. She was named a Next Generation Poet by the Poetry Book Society, a once-a-decade accolade. Her albums Everybody Down and Let Them Eat Chaos have been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. The latter's accompanying poetry book (also titled Let Them Eat Chaos) was nominated for the Costa Book of the Year in the Poetry Category. Her debut novel The Bricks That Built the Houses was a Sunday Times bestseller and won the 2017 Books Are My Bag Readers Award for Breakthrough Author. She was nominated as Best Female Solo Performer at the 2018 Brit Awards.