Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) is familiar to readers all over the world as the author of some of the finest and most influential fiction of the last few decades. Titles like The Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace, and The Robber Bride…

Elizabeth Bartlett (1924 – 2008) grew up in Deal, Kent. Her childhood was one of hardship and although she gained a grammar school scholarship she left education at fifteen. At nineteen she married and had one son. She worked for…

Alan Brownjohn (b. 1931) grew up in London and was educated at Merton College, Oxford. He worked first as a schoolteacher and then a lecturer before becoming a full-time freelance writer in 1979. His writing life since then has demonstrated…

James Berry (1924 – 2017) spent his childhood in a village in Jamaica, before working in the United States, finally settling in Britain in 1948 where he remained for the rest of his life. One of the first black writers…

Charles Causley (1917-2003) was born and brought up in Launceston, Cornwall and lived there for most of his life. When he was only seven his father died from wounds sustained during the First World War. This early loss and his…

Alison Croggon (b. 1962) has been described as “one of the most assured of a new generation of Australian poets.” She is the author of three full-length collections published in Australia, whilst a selected poems, The Common Flesh: Poems 1980-2002…

Allen Curnow (1911-2001) is a central figure in the emergence of an authentic New Zealand literature. A clue to this pivotal role can perhaps be traced in the fruitful duality of his parentage: born in Timaru he was the son…

Fred D’Aguiar (b. 1960) draws on his dual Guyanese/British heritage throughout his writing which incorporates poetry, novels and plays. Although born in London, he lived in Guyana until he was twelve before returning to England where the highly politicised atmosphere…

Peter Dale (b. 1938) studied English at Oxford University where he became friends with the poets Ian Hamilton and Kevin Crossley-Holland, and William Cookson with whom Dale went on to edit the influential poetry quarterly Agenda. Dale’s first collection, Walk…

The death of Michael Donaghy (1954-2004) robbed the poetry world of one of its most talented and charismatic practitioners. Born in New York of Irish descent, Donaghy grew up in the Bronx where his exposure to Irish culture instilled in…

D. J. Enright (1920-2002) was born in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, into a family of modest means. However, the young Dennis won a place at Downing College, Cambridge where he was influenced by his controversial tutor, F R Leavis, an…

U. A. Fanthorpe (1929 – 2009) spent her earliest years in Kent. She attended St Anne’s College Oxford afterwards becoming a teacher and ultimately Head of English at Cheltenham Ladies’ College. However, she only began writing when she turned her…

Vicki Feaver (b. 1943) grew up in Nottingham “in a house of quarrelling women”, an emotional inheritance which finds later expression in her poetry. She studied Music at Durham University and English University College, London and worked as a lecturer…

Katrina Porteous was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, to parents from North East England, and grew up in County Durham, where she attended Durham High School for Girls. She graduated from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1982 with a double first in…

Paul Farley (b.1965) began winning awards with Poetry Review’s Geoffrey Dearmer Prize, took the Forward Prize for Best First Collection with The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You, and won the Whitbread Poetry Prize for his second,…

In addition to writing poetry for both children and adults, John Mole (b. 1941) is an accomplished jazz clarinettist and has been known to combine poetry and jazz with other poet-musicians such as Roy Fisher and John Lucas. He has…

Ciaran Carson (b. 1948 – d. 2019) was the author of nine books of poetry and four prose works, and the winner of several awards including the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward…

Anne Ridler (1912-2001) moved in literature throughout her life; she was the daughter of writers, with more in the extended family, and joined Faber and Faber’s poetry department while in her early twenties. She edited many collections and anthologies while…