Carol Ann Duffy was born in Glasgow in 1955. She is now tutor for postgraduate poets at Manchester Metropolitan University. In 1993 she recieved the forward Prize and a Whitbread Award for her collection Mean Time (Anvil Press Poetry). Her selected Poems is published by Penguin, and her latest collections, The World’s Wife, was published by Picador in 2000, and Picador also recently published in 2003 The Feminine Gospels. Her collections also include The other Country, Selected Poems (Penguin) and she has edited a collection for children entitled Collected Grimm Tales, with Tim Supple, and Overhead on a Saltmarsh: Poets’ Favorite Poems, published by Macmillan Children’s Books.
Liz Lochhead is one of Scotland’s most admired poets and playwrights. Her work is irreverent, sometimes scathing, and funny. Her poetry and plays include Bagpipe Muzak, Medea, Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off and Dracula. Liz is a wounderful performer and teacher. Her latest collection The Colour of Black and White has recently been published by Polygon.
Elaine Feinstein has published over thirty books including fiction and biography, and has written for radio and television. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1980 and recieved a Cholmondeley Award in 1990. She is a reputed translator of the Russian poet Tsvetayeva. Her most recent poetry collection, Collected Poems, was published by Carcanet in 2003, and her biography of Ted Hughes has recently been published to critical acclaim.
Nina Cassian has published some fifty books in Romania including work of fiction and children’s verse. Her first collection of poetry written in English Take My Word For It, was published by Anvil Press in 1998. She is also a painter and composer and accomplished translator of the work of Mayakovsky, Yannis Ritsos, Brecht,celan and Shakespeare amoungst others.