A u t h o r s f o r E v E n t s

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Authors available for events

Ian Pindar was born in London in 1970. He published his first work, a life of James Joyce, in 2004. His poems have appeared in The English Review, The Forward Book of Poetry 2011 and 2012, London Magazine, Magma, New Poetries III, Oxford Poetry, PN Review, Poetry Review, Stand, the Times Literary Supplement and Wave Composition. Pindar won second prize in the National Poetry Competition 2009, a supplementary prize in the Bridport Prize 2010 and was shortlisted for the 2010 Forward Prize (Best Single Poem). He lives in Oxfordshire.

Publications: Constellations (May 2012), Emporium (2011)Local Interest: Oxfordshire, England

IAN PINDAR

Gabriel Josipovici was born in Nice in 1940. He lived in Egypt before coming to England in 1956. After graduating from Oxford, he taught at the University of Sussex from 1963-1998. He is the author of sixteen novels, three volumes of short stories (many of which are published by Carcanet), eight critical works, a memoir of his mother, the poet and translator Sacha Rabinovitch, and numerous stage and radio plays, as well as a regular contributor to the TLS. His acclaimed critical book, Whatever Hap-pened to Modernism?, was published by Yale University Press in 2010.

Publications: Infinity (May 2012), Heart’s Wings (2010), After and Making Mistakes (2009), Everything Passes (2006), The Singer on the Shore (2006), Goldberg: Variations (2002), In a Hotel Garden (1993)Local Interest: Brighton, Lewes & London, England

GABRIEL JOSIPOVICI

JOHN GALLASJohn Gallas was born in 1950 in Wellington, New Zealand. He came to England to study Old Icelandic in 1972. He has been a teacher of children with special needs for twenty years, most recently with the Leicestershire Student Support Service.

Publications: 52 Euros (March 2013), Fresh Air and The Story of Molecule (June 2012), Forty Lies (2010), The Book with Twelve Tales (2008), Star City (2004), The Song Atlas (2002), Resistance is Futile (1999), Grrrr (1997)Local Interest: Leicestershire, England; Wellington, New Zealand

Authors available for events

Evan Jones was born in Toronto. A dual citizen of Canada and Greece, he has lived in Britain since 2005. He has a PhD in Eng-lish and Creative Writing from the University of Manchester and has taught at York University in Toronto, and in Britain at the Universities of Bolton, Manchester, Leeds and at Liverpool John Moores University. His first collection, Nothing Fell Today But Rain (2003), was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry.

Publications: Paralogues (June 2012), New Poetries V (2011)Local Interest: Manchester, England

EVAN JONES

James Womack was born in Cambridge in 1979. He studied Russian, English and translation in St. Petersburg, Reykjavík and Oxford. He currently lives in Madrid, where he teaches at the Universidad Complutense and is co-editor of the publishing house Nevsky Prospects, which produces Spanish translations of Russian literature. Amongst others, he has translated works by Alexander Pushkin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Savinkov and Silvina Ocampo.

Publications: Misprint (July 2012), New Poetries V (2011)Local Interest: Madrid, Spain

JAMES WOMACK

DAVID HERDDavid Herd is a poet, critic and teacher. His recent essays on poetry and politics have appeared in PN Review, Parallax and Almost Island. He was born in 1967 and lives in Kent, where he lectures at the Univeristy of Kent, Canterbury. He is the author of a monograph on the work of John Ashbery.

Publications: All Just (July 2012), Mandelson! Mandelson! A Memoir (2005)Local Interest: Kent, England

Authors available for events

Gerry McGrath was born and raised in Helensburgh, Scotland. He is a graduate of Strathclyde University and worked for several years as a teacher of modern languages. In 2007 received a New Writer’s bursary from the Scottish Arts Council. His poetry was included in New Poetries IV (Carcanet, 2007). He lives in North Ayrshire with his wife and two sons.

Publications: Rooster (August 2012), A to B (2008)Local Interest: Glasgow, Edinburgh & Ayrshire, Scotland

GERRY McGRATH

Gareth Reeves was an undergraduate at Oxford and graduate student at Stanford, where he also held a Wallace Stegner Writing Fellowship. Until recently he was Reader in English at Durham University, where he ran an MA creative writing course in poetry. He is also the author of two books on T. S. Eliot, co-author of a book about the 1930s poets and many essays on nineteenth- and twentieth-century English, American and Irish poetry.

Publications: To Hell with Paradise (August 2012)Local Interest: Durham & Oxford, England

GARETH REEVES

WILLIAM LETFORDWilliam Letford has worked as a roofer, on and off, since he was fifteen years old. He has received a New Writer’s Award from the Scottish Book Trust and an Edwin Morgan Travel Bursary which allowed him to spend three months in the mountains of northern Italy helping to restore a medieval village. He has an M.Litt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow.

Publications: Bevel (September 2012), New Poetries V (2011)Local Interest: Stirling & Glasgow, Scotland

Authors available for events

Jeffrey Wainwright was born in Stoke-on-Trent and educated locally and at the University of Leeds. For many years he was Professor in the Department of English and its Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. Wainwright has pub-lished widely on poetry, including Poetry: The Basics (Routledge 2004) and his book on the poetry of Geoffrey Hill, Acceptable Words (Manchester University Press, 2005).

Publications: The Reasoner (September 2012), Clarity or Death! (2008), Out of the Air (1999), The Red-Headed Pupil (1994), Selected Poems (1985), Heart’s Desire (1978)Local Interest: Manchester, England

JEFFREY WAINWRIGHT

Oli Hazzard was born in Bristol in 1986, and studied English at University College London and the University of Bristol. He is currently researching John Ashbery’s poetry at the University of Oxford. Oli Hazzard’s poetry has appeared in magazines and anthologies including The Forward Book of Poetry 2010, Best British Poetry 2011, and The Salt Book of Younger Poets.

Publications: Between Two Windows (September 2012), New Poetries V (2011)Local Interest: Oxford & London, England

OLI HAZZARD

JOHN F. DEANEJohn F. Deane was born on Achill Island in 1943. He founded Poetry Ireland and the Poetry Ireland Review in 1979. He is the author of many collections of poetry and some fiction. His poetry has been translated into several languages and he has pub-lished two novels and two collections of short stories. Deane is the recipient of various awards, including the O’Shaughnessy Award for Irish Poetry in 1998, the Grand International Prize for Poetry from Romania in 2000, and the Marten Toonder Award for Literature in 2001. His poems in Italian, translated by Roberto Cogo, won the 2002 Premio Internazionale di Poesia Città di Marineo for the best foreign poetry of the year. John F. Deane is a member of Aosdána.

Publications: Snow Falling on Chestnut Hill: New and Selected Poems (October 2012), Eye of the Hare (2011), A Little Book of Hours (2008), The Instruments of Art (2005), Manhandling the Deity (2003), Toccata and Fugue (2000)Local Interest: Dublin, Republic of Ireland

Authors available for events

Pippa Little was born in East Africa, raised in Scotland, and now lives in Northumberland. She has worked in editing, literacy and higher education and has a PhD in contemporary women’s poetry from London University. Her first collection, The Spar Box, came out in 2006 and was a PBS Pamphlet Choice. She is the winner of an Eric Gregory Award, The Norman MacCaig Centenary Prize, The Andrew Waterhouse Northern Promise Award and the Scotsman Haiku Prize.

Publications: Overwintering (October 2012)Local Interest: Northumberland, England; St Andrews, Scotland

PIPPA LITTLE

Gillian Clarke was born in Cardiff in 1937 . A poet, writer and playwright, she is president and co-founder of Tŷ Newydd, the writers’ centre in North Wales. In 2008 she was appointed the National Poet of Wales and in 2010 was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry. Her poetry is studied by GCSE and A Level students throughout Britain. She has given poetry readings and lectures in Europe and the United States, and her work has been translated into ten languages.

Publications: Ice (October 2012), A Recipe for Water (2009), At the Source (2008), Making the Beds for the Dead (2004), Five Fields (1998), Collected Poems (1997), Selected Poems (1996), The King of Britain’s Daughter (1993), Letter from a Far Country (1992), Letting in the Rumour (1991), Local Interest: Ceredigion & Cardiff, Wales

GILLIAN CLARKE

PETER McDONALDPeter McDonald was born in Belfast in 1962, and was educated at University College, Oxford. After winning the Newdigate Prize and an Eric Gregory Award, he published his first book of poems in 1989. His critical and editorial work includes The Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice (2007), and Sound Intentions: The Workings of Rhyme in Nineteenth-Century Poetry (2012). He is the editor of W.B. Yeats’ Complete Poems for Longman.

Publications: Collected Poems (October 2012), Torchlight (2011), The House of Clay (2007), Pastorals (2004)Local Interest: Oxford, England; Belfast, Northern Ireland

Authors available for events

Richard Price was born in 1966, grew up in Scotland, and was educated at Strathclyde University. His book Lucky Day (Carcan-et 2005), was a Guardian Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize. In 2012 his poem ‘Hedge Sparrows’ was chosen to represent Team GB in the Olympics project ‘The Written World’. His poems have been widely anthologised and translated. He is Head of Content and Research Strategy at the British Library, in London.

Publications: Small World (November 2012), Rays (2009), Greenfields (2007), Lucky Day (2005)Local Interest: London, England

RICHARD PRICE

Jane Yeh was born in America and educated at Harvard University, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Manchester Metropoli-tan University. Her previous book, Marabou, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award, the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. She is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, an Academy of American Poets Prize and the Girton College Jane Martin Prize for Poetry. She lives in London and teaches at Kingston University.

Publications: The Ninjas (November 2012), Marabou (2005) Local Interest: London, England

JANE YEH

OWEN LOWERYOwen Lowery was born in 1968. Formerly a British Judo champion, he suffered a spinal injury while competing and is now a tetraplegic. He has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Bolton University, where he is completing his PhD. His poetry has appeared in Stand and PN Review, and has been listed in the Bridport Prize, the Welsh Open Poetry Competition, the Virginia Warbey Prize, and the International Sonnet Competition.

Publications: Otherwise Unchanged (January 2013)Local Interest: Bolton, England

Authors available for events

Rodney Pybus was born in Newcastle in 1938 and educated at Cambridge. He has worked as a newspaper journalist, a writer-producer in television, and a university lecturer. After working for Northern Arts in Cumbria he moved to Suffolk, where he still lives. He has taught creative writing at all levels of education, and English Literature and Media Studies to A level students. He is the recipient of awards from Arts Council England and the Society of Authors, and a winner of the Peterloo International Poetry Competition.

Publications: Darkness Inside Out (January 2013), Flying Blues (1994)Local Interest: Suffolk, England

RODNEY PYBUS

Iain Bamforth grew up in Glasgow and graduated from its medical school. He has worked as a hospital doctor, general practi-tioner, translator, lecturer in comparative literature, and public health consultant in several developing countries, principally in Asia. Since 2005, Bamforth has worked on European Commission projects in Indonesia and the Philippines, visiting remot-est Papua, Timor, Bali, Sumatra and Java.

Publications: The Crossing Fee (February 2013), The Good European (2006), A Place in the World (2005), Open Workings (1996), Sons and Pioneers (1992) Local Interest: Glasgow, Scotland; Strasbourg, France

IAIN BAMFORTH

CHRIS BECKETTChris Beckett was born in London and grew up in Ethiopia where his father worked for the British Embassy. He received a first class degree in modern languages from Oxford University, before pursuing a career in shipping and commodities in Japan and London. He has translated work by the Ethiopian writers, including Bewketu Seyoum, Fekade Azeze and Zewdu Milikit. He is currently working on translations of the later poems of Aimé Césaire, the great Martinican author of Cahier d’un retour au pays natal.

Publications: Ethiopia Boy (February 2013)Local Interest: London, England

Authors available for events

Alison Brackenbury was born in 1953 in Lincolnshire. For over thirty years she has written and published poetry in the gaps between child-rearing, attending to cats and horses, various forms of politics, and paid work, including twenty years of manual work in the family metal-finishing business, from which she has just retired. She has won an Eric Gregory Award, and a Cholmondeley Award and been published in all the major poetry journals, including the TLS and Poetry Review.

Publications: Then (April 2013), Singing in the Dark (2008), Bricks and Ballads (2004), 1829 (1995), Selected Poems (1991)Local Interest: Cheltenham, England

ALISON BRACKENBURY

Lucy Burnett was born in Dumfries in 1975 and worked and lived in Edinburgh for many years before moving to the Manchester area. For the last three years she has taught creative writing at the University of Salford while completing a Creative Writing PhD there. In 2007 she was shortlisted for the Chroma International Poetry Competition.

Publications: Leaf Graffiti (April 2013) Local Interest: Greater Manchester, England; Dumfries & Edinburgh, Scotland

LUCY BURNETT

PETER DAVIDSONPeter Davidson was born in Scotland in 1957 and educated at the Universities of Cambridge and York. He was Wingate Foun-dation Scholar at St Andrews 1989-90, has lectured at the Universities of Leiden and Warwick, and is currently Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Aberdeen. His prose book The Idea of the North (Reaktion Books) appeared in 2005. He is also a librettist for Paul Mealor, and a regular contributor to PN Review.

Publications: Distance and Memory (June 2013), Collected Poems by Robert Southwell (ed.) (2008)Local Interest: Aberdeenshire, Scotland; The North of England

Authors available for events

Fred D’Aguiar was born in London in 1960 to Guyanese parents, grew up in Guyana and returned to London as a teenager. He trained as a psychiatric nurse in London before studying at the University of Kent. He has published six volumes of poetry and five novels, including The Longest Memory, which won the 1994 Whitbread First Novel Award and was adapted for television. He divides his time between the UK, Guyana and the US, where he is Professor of English and Africana Studies at Virginia Tech State University.

Publications: The Rose of Toulouse (June 2013), Continental Shelf (2009)Local Interest: Suffolk, England

FRED D’AGUIAR

Tara Bergin was born in Dublin in 1974. She is currently studying at Newcastle University for a PhD on Ted Hughes’s translations of János Pilinszky. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Review, Poetry London, Modern Poetry in Translation and PN Review.

Publications: This is Yarrow (July 2013)Local Interest: Newcastle & Yorkshire, England; Dublin, Ireland

TARA BERGIN

DAVID MORLEYAn ecologist by background, David Morley’s poetry has won many awards. Enchantment was a Sunday Telegraph Book of the Year chosen by Jonathan Bate. The Invisible Kings was a PBS Recommendation and TLS Book of the Year chosen by Les Murray. A popular performer of his poetry at festivals around the world, David is also an award-winning teacher and a leading international advocate for creative writing. He wrote The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing (2007) and co-edited The Cambridge Companion to Creative Writing (2012). He is Professor of Writing at the University of Warwick.

Publications: The Gypsy and the Poet (August 2013), Enchantment (2010), The Invisible Kings (2007), Scientific Papers (2002)Local Interest: Warwick, England

Authors available for events

Sinéad Morrissey was born in Portadown, Co Armagh, in 1972 and grew up in Belfast. Her awards include the Patrick Kavan-agh Award, the Rupert and Eithne Strong Award and the Michael Hartnett Poetry Prize. Between Here and There and The State of the Prisons were shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. The State of the Prisons was also shortlisted for the Irish Times Poetry Prize and the John Llewellyn Rhys Commonwealth Literature Prize. In 2007 she received a Lannan Literary Fellowship. She is Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen’s University, Belfast.

Publications: New Collection, Title TBC (September 2013), Through the Square Window (2009), The State of the Prisons (2005), Between Here and There (2001), There was Fire in Vancouver (1996)Local Interest: Belfast, Northern Ireland

SINÉAD MORRISSEY

Peter Sansom was born in 1958 in Nottinghamshire. Now living in Sheffield, he has been a director of the Poetry Business in Huddersfield and editor of The North magazine and Smith/Doorstop Books. His influential book, Writing Poems, is published by Bloodaxe. He is married to the poet Ann Sansom.

Publications: Careful What You Wish For (October 2013), Selected Poems (2010), The Last Place on Earth (2006), Point of Sale (2000), January (1994)Local Interest: Huddersfield & Sheffield, England

PETER SANSOM

CAROLINE BIRDCaroline Bird, born in 1986, was a winner of the Simon Elvin Young Poets of the Year Award in 1999 and 2000, and the Peter-loo Poets Competition for Young Poets in 2002, 2003 and 2004. She was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Dearmer prize in 2001 and won a major Eric Gregory Award in 2002. Caroline Bird was a member of the Royal Court Young Writers programme and has written a number of plays. Caroline has given poetry readings at the Royal Festival Hall, Cheltenham Festival and Ledbury Festival. Her plays, verse and prose have been broadcast on BBC Radio Four.

Publications: New Collection, Title TBC (October 2013), Watering Can (2009), Trouble Came to the Turnip (2006), Looking Through Letterboxes (2002)Local Interest: Warwick, England