Catriona Child, Trackman (Luath Press, 2012)

In Catriona Child's powerful debut novel, Davie Watts is the Trackman.

When a homeless man gifts Davie with an old MP3 player, he has no idea what to do with it. After all, it is rusted, cracked and doesn't even have any buttons!

But all that changes with two words, 'Welcome Trackman'.

Somehow, the device knows what song to play to you and exactly when you need to hear it. It is up to Davie to seek out strangers in need and help them using the power of music.

But can a song really change a life? Can a song bring people, places and moments in time alive again?

Both humorous and poignant, Catriona Child weaves magic and healing into contemporary Edinbugh through one man and his unusual MP3 player.

Ren Powell, Mercy Island: New and Selected Poems (Phoenicia Publishing, March 2011)

Ren Powell, who recently gained her PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster, has published her fifth poetry collection - her first collection to be published in North America. These forty-one poems, written by Ren between 1998 and 2010, depict a coming of age that begins in a claustrophobic American trailer park and expands into the kind of borderless existence shared by all emigrants and homesick travelers. “Ren Powell takes the world in whole, ‘negotiates a new language,’ and gives it back to us in all its terror, strangeness, pain and beauty. Many of these poems read like fable: a woman with a gown of eggshells, a stone turtle that captures the essence of a childhood. Other poems testify to the resilience of the human spirit even after the unspeakable happens. I loved these poems for the freshness of the language, for their deep truths and most of all for their compassion” (Patricia Fargnoli).

Christina Lloyd, Territories (Finishing Line Press, February 2011)

Born in Hong Kong, raised in the Philippines and educated in the United States, Christina Lloyd has lived and worked as an English teacher in Costa Rica, Japan and Ireland. She completed a Distance Learning MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster University, and currently lives in San Francisco. Territories is her first chapbook.  "Christina Lloyd gives us poems of exuberance and wonder, poems that are not afraid to engage with the beauty and harshness of the everyday…" (Karen Llagas).

Marianne Wheelaghan, The Blue Suitcase (Pilrig Press, 5 Nov 2010)

Marianne Wheelaghan was a student on our Distance Learning MA in Creative Writing 2000-02. Her new novel, The Blue Suitcase, is set in Silesia, Germany, in 1932. James Robertson writes, 'We think by now that there can be no more untold stories from the 1930s and the Second World War. Then a book like this comes along and we are once again astonished by the capacity of some humans to do unspeakably cruel things, and of others to survive them. The simple, almost mundane tone of Antonia's diary makes The Blue Suitcase all the more shocking. It's hard to read, but harder to stop.' Read more on Amazon.

Deborah Swift, The Lady’s Slipper (Macmillan New Writing, June 2010)

“Vivid, gripping and intensely atmospheric, The Lady’s Slipper is a novel about beauty, faith and loyalty. It marks the emergence of an exquisite new voice in historical fiction.” (Amazon) "Deborah Swift’s writing style, combined with her knowledge of mid-17th Century life is masterful in her portrayal of a crueller and less tolerant time, where suspicion is enough to condemn the innocent and women were regarded as the cradle of all evils."  (Historical Novel Review).  Deborah has an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University.

Read more about Deborah Swift.

Ray Robinson, Forgetting Zoe (William Heinemann, June 2010)

"Stockholm syndrome is a curious but understandable condition, intelligently and vividly explored by Ray Robinson ... It is a measure of Ray Robinson's own sympathetic imagination that he makes Thurman credible as a human being and not merely a monster ... Ray Robinson is a writer with keen observation. His prose is hard, abrupt and sinewy…[Forgetting Zoe] is a novel that contains violence but also stillness, that reveals more than it makes explicit ... A mature and accomplished work." - Allan Massie, The Scotsman

Read more about Ray Robinson.

Heather Richardson, Magdeburg (Lagan Press, June 2010)

“As the Thirty Years War rages across central Europe, the Protestant denizens of Magdeburg are holding out against the armies of the Catholic Emperor Ferdinand. Sweeping in its scope and ambition, Heather Richardson's debut novel tells the intertwining and conflicting stories of the Henning family, their friends, their associates and their enemies…Vibrant and convincingly told, Magdeburg is a gripping novel striking its contemporary resonances and its ability to portray complex truths about belief, family, belonging and war.” (Lagan Press)  Heather was awarded a Distinction in the Lancaster Distance Learning MA in Creative Writing and teaches creative writing for the Open University.

Angela Barry, Gorée: Point of Departure (Peepal Tree Press, May 2010)

“Unresolved traumas always come back to haunt us. From hidden infidelities to atrocities on the ocean, they linger in the private and collective consciousness like a tumor that can become malignant in a second. Or they grow undetected, their poison infecting the vulnerable members of our families and communities. In Goree: Point of Departure, Angela Barry muses on the enormity of the Atlantic holocaust through the fractured relationship of Magdalene Joseph, a St. Lucian filmmaker, and Saliou Wade, a Senegalese doctor, and their children, Khadi and Maimouna…What kept me reading was the vitality of the main characters and the beautifully shaped language.” (Gedachten in gedichten).  Angela is currently working on her PhD at Lancaster University.  See the Peepal Tree Press site.

Read more about Angela Barry.

Paul Magrs, Hell’s Belles! (Headline Review, April 2010)

“The heroine is the Bride of Frankenstein. She goes by the name of Brenda, and runs a Bed-and-Breakfast in the seaside town of Whitby. Brenda's circle also includes her hubby Frank, and her friend Robert who manages a hotel…Magrs richly imagines these characters from the inside-out, and brings them to life with a fine eye for detail and ear for dialogue. He does a masterful job of building sympathy for them through a kind of humor rooted in their vulnerabilities and surprising strengths.” (The Groovy Age of Horror)

 Read more about Paul Magrs.

Carl McKeating and Rachel Crolla, Europe's High Points: Reaching the Summit of Every Country in Europe (Cicerone Press, October 2009)

Carl McKeating, a Lancaster Creative Writing student who graduated in 2004, has just published a book about reaching the highest point of any European country: "This guide brings together detailed route descriptions for those seeking to get to the highest peaks in countries from Liechtenstein to Latvia and Germany to Greece. Whether attempting to climb individual high points or complete all 50 ascents, these routes are crammed with some of the most stunning landscapes and exciting terrain that Europe has to offer....From the frozen tundra of the Arctic Circle to the arid plains of the Sierra Nevada, this book contains something for everyone..." (Amazon)

John Corless, Are You Ready? (Salmon Poetry, June 2009)

John Corless gained a Distinction in the Lancaster Creative Writing Distance Learning MA in October 2008. He is now working on his PhD at Lancaster. Are You Ready? was published in June 2009: "John Corless comes to poetry with an infectious enthusiasm. He has imbued his work with a sense of discovery and wonder. His debut collection is gritty and irreverent, infected with copious amounts of tongue-in-cheek humour. Here you will find fake tan and calf nuts, the PDs , dancehall fights and dry cash hid behind dressers by dead bachelors. This is not a naive nostalgic sojourn through rural Connaught but an uncompromising white knuckle ride through sometimes dark and menacing places where sacred cows are put through their paces before being loaded up in a trailer and driven unceremoniously out to grass. You have been warned." – Ger Reidy.

Read more about John Corless.

Ali Shaw, The Girl with Glass Feet (Atlantic Books, May 2009)

Ali Shaw graduated from Lancaster University with a first class degree in English Literature, took the Creative Writing MA there and has since worked as a bookseller and at Oxford's Bodleian Library. "Strange things are happening on the remote and snowbound archipelago of St Hauda's Land. Unusual winged creatures flit around icy bogland; albino animals hide themselves in the snow-glazed woods; jellyfish glow in the ocean's depths...And Ida MacLaird is slowly turning into glass. A mysterious and frightening alchemical metamorphosis has befallen Ida Maclaird - she is slowly turning into glass, from the feet up....The Girl with Glass Feet is a dazzlingly imaginative and gripping first novel, a love story to treasure." (Amazon)  "Ali Saw has written a rare orchid of book, beautiful and eccentric and exquisitely sad.' (Patrick Ness, Penguin Books, Australia)

Jane Eagland, Wildthorn (Macmillan Children's Books, March 2009)

Jane Eagland, who did an MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster, now divides her time between writing and tutoring. Wildthorn, her first novel, was inpsired by true stories of women who were incarcerated in asylums in the nineteenth century:  "Seventeen-year-old Louisa Cosgrove longs to break free from her respectable life as a Victorian doctor's daughter. But her dreams become a nightmare when Louisa is sent to Wildthorn Hall: labeled a lunatic, deprived of her liberty and even her real name. As she unravels the betrayals that led to her incarceration, she realizes there are many kinds of prison. She must be honest with herself - and others - in order to be set free. And love may be the key..." (Amazon)  Click here to read more at Bookseller.com about Wildthorn and Jane Eagland.

Brigid Rose, The City of Lists (Crocus Books, March 2009)

Brigid Rose was a student on the Lancaster Creative Writing MA from 2002 to 2004 and she has just had her first novel published - the one she started on the course.  "Neeve meets Valentine at her Work Unit. A tentative friendship develops between them and together they summon the courage to leave the regimen of the Sixth Compound. Then Lol, unrepenatant law-breaker and member of the underground movement, blasts into their lives and their friendship takes a path none of them could have forseen" (Amazon).  Click here for the Crocus Books media release.

Paula Brackston, Book of Shadows (Snowbooks, February 2009)

Paula Brackston, who has an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, published her first novel with Snowbooks earlier this year.  Extracts from reviews:  "Ambitious and thought-provoking, this book will lure you into vivid, visceral worlds where evil lurks at every turn. The beautifully crafted Book of Shadows will be etched on my mind for a long time. What an action-packed, emotionally powerful film it would make too." Sally Spedding. "An unforgettable story by a highly original new writer." Rebecca Tope, author of the Cotswold crime series. (Amazon)

Monique Roffey, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (Simon & Schuster, July 2009)

"When George and Sabine Harwood arrive in Trinidad from England George instantly takes to their new life, but Sabine feels isolated, heat-fatigued, and ill at ease with the racial segregation and the imminent dawning of a new era. Her only solace is her growing fixation with Eric Williams, the charismatic leader of Trinidad's new national party, to whom she pours out all her hopes and fears for the future in letters that she never brings herself to send. As the years progress, George and Sabine's marriage endures for better or worse. When George discovers Sabine's cache of letters, he realises just how many secrets she's kept from him - and he from her - over the decades. And he is seized by an urgent, desperate need to prove his love for her, with tragic consequences..."

Read more about Monique Roffey.

Ian Seed, Anonymous Intruder (Shearsman Books, February 2009)

"The poems and prose poems in Anonymous Intruder navigate the vulnerabilities revealed in relationships, only to abandon these in a wandering search for new encounters and new truths. The seeking 'self' goes into exile to be shattered and reconstructed. In a hesitant movement towards the transcendental, the poems consider the possibility and impossibility of returning home. They must first find a way to recognise the stranger approaching from a distance. Although these narratives are fragmented and elliptical, the imagery is stark and clear, the language concise, the rhythms and patterns engaging."

Read more about Ian Seed.

Ray Robinson, The Man Without (Picador, July 2008)

"Antony Dobson has lived through a lot in his short twenty-six years...Haunted by childhood memories and guarding a dark, humiliating secret that he dare not reveal, he's hurtling fast towards the point of no return. Impressive and irresistibly readable, this tight-rope-walk of a novel explores memory, love, identity, and absence in a dazzling display that is in turn sad, witty and deeply affecting.” (Amazon)

Read more about Ray Robinson

Sarah Stovell, Mothernight (Snowbooks, 3 March 2008) 

"'I was beginning to realise that time didn't move forwards here. It just spun round and round, circling an old date, endlessly.' So says seventeen-year-old Olivia who spends the summer at the home of her boarding school friend, the brilliant, distant, lonely Leila…Now on the verge of adulthood, Leila decides to confront her past and her family, but the atmosphere of blame and recrimination hangs as heavy as the summer heat and will prove more powerful than she could have ever imagined." (Amazon)

Read more about Sarah Stovell

Nigel McLoughlin, Dissonances (Bluechrome Publishing, September 2007)

“McLoughlin's fourth collection orbits around four poetic loci…The poems collude and collide to form a collection that foregrounds language in all its dissonant and disjointed richness. The work transmits a linguistic and semiotic energy and demands that the receiver take note.” (Amazon)

Read more about Nigel McLoughlin

Alison MacLeod, Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction (Hamish Hamilton, September 2007) 

"This collection of short stories allows us to peep into the private lives of many different characters...they are a modern and enjoyable take on how love finds us and leaves us." (Sunday Express)   "Clever, full of depth and at times bust-a-rib funny, this is chick lit for the cynical." (New Woman)

Read more about Alison MacLeod

Martin Goodman, Suffer and Survive: The Extreme Life of J. S Haldane (Simon & Schuster, August 2007) 

"Martin Goodman begins his excellent biography of John Scott Haldane with a vivid account of the Tylorstown disaster. He has a novelist’s eye for evocative detail that lesser writers might miss and the result is as compelling as a historical novel." from The Times review.

Read more about Martin Goodman

Abigail Zammit, Voices from the Land of Trees (Smokestack Books, June 2007) 

"Voices from the Land of Trees raises many questions about human suffering, not just in this war, but in all wars. It is a powerful testimony for the people who were directly involved in the war in Guatamala, written with sensitivity and an awareness of what has been lost." Annie Clarkson, Stride Magazine

Read  more about Abigail Zammit

Micheline Maylor, The Full Depth: The Raymond Knister poems (Wolsak & Wynn, April 2007) 

"The spirit of Knister's ground-breaking fiction and poetry is embodied in verse that is elegant, erotic, musical and engaging. Full Depth brings to life not only a moving love story, but a fine new talent." Carmine Starnino (http://michelinemaylor.com/books.html )

Read more about Micheline Maylor

Ian Marchant, The Longest Crawl (Bloomsbury, July 2006) 

"The greatest pub crawl ever recorded ... Full of wonderful anecdotes, extraordinary characters and more absurd facts than any pub quiz would throw up" (Daily Mirror)  "I didn't want it to end ... It's a big, fat affirmation of life, and Lord knows, we can all do with one of them from time to time" (Nicholas Lezard's paperback choice, Guardian)

Read more about Ian Marchant

Stephen Hanson, Knitted Wings (Summer Palace Press, June 2006) 

"The poems in this collection are the accumulation of fourteen years of the poet’s work and take you through the interior and exterior views of a Northern Irish poet. As Jane Draycott states, you 'enter the fugitive realm were history and love and loss reside in delicate balance'". Fergal Mahan (Amazon reviewer)

Read more about Stephen Hanson

Geraldine Green, Passio (Flarestack, April 2006) 

"Every person, plant, bird, tree, creature, and the multitude of other natural gems Green encounters are connected by subjectively experienced correspondences...Each phrase is an earthly metaphor with a rich history, and Geraldine Green has the fantastic ability to end each poem with a single line that leaves you suspended in a nearly timeless contemplation." Mary Jo Malo, Unlikely 2.0

Read more about Geraldine Green

Ray Robinson, Electricity (Picador, March 2006)

“An energetic debut, bristling with talent” (The Times).  “Its fast, furious plot, kaleidoscopic imagery, blunt observations and a wry, ingenious, hugely compassionate heroine make this eviscerating debut novel a breath-taking assault on the senses” (Guardian).

Read more about Ray Robinson

Jacob Polley, Little Gods (Picador, December 2006) 

“Polley’s ability to balance exquisite form with surprising material it never quite subdues keeps this collection alive and breathing in a way that is rare in the era of the workshop poem…” Click here for the rest of Fiona Sampson’s review in The Liberal.

Read more about Jacob Polley

Martin Goodman, Slippery When Wet (Transita, January 2006) 

“I’m not sure how Martin Goodman has pulled this extraordinary novel off - so moving and so funny; so sharply acute and so generous hearted; so translucent and so intelligent; so honest and so hopeful. Should work for both sunny days and cold nights…”  Sara Maitland (quoted http://www.martingoodman.com/books.htm )

Read more about Martin Goodman

Rajeev Balasubramanyam is currently studying for a PhD at Lancaster with an AHRC bursary from the Moving Manchester: Mediating Marginalties project. His first novel, In Beautiful Disguises, won a Betty Trask Prize in 2000 and was nominated for the Guardian First Fiction Prize. His short-stories have been published in several anthologies, including New Writing 12 (Picador), Fugue, and So What Kept You? (Flambard). He was editor of Tell Tales Vol 2., an anthology designed to rekindle enthusiasm for the short story, and is currently working on his second novel, The Dreamer, based on his Ian St James winning short-story of the same title. Click here for a review of In Beautiful Disguises.

Angela Barry lives and works in Bermuda. Her writing has been published in The Massachusetts Review and she is the recipient of a James Michener Creative Writing Fellowship. Gorée: Point of Departure (see above) was published in 2010, and her collection of stories, Endangered Species, was published by Peepal Tree Press in November 2002: “Centred on Bermuda, but traversing America, London, the Gambia and the Cote d'lvoire, these stories explore both the ways in which differences of place, colour, class and culture divide people of the African diaspora, and also the ways in which aspects of their culture, such as food and music, make for a unity that is real, if submarine… This is undoubtedly the most significant work of fiction to come out of Bermuda…” (Amazon)

Helen Clare’s Mollusc was published by Comma Press in 2004.  Helen’s work was featured in Faber’s First Pressings anthology in 1998, which heralded a new generation of British poets. Her poems have since won a number of national prizes and commendations, including First Prizes in the London Writers Competition 2002 and in the Yorkshire Open 1999. Her poems have also appeared in numerous magazines. Having graduated from Lancaster University's Creative Writing Programme with distinction, Helen now teaches Creative Writing for their Department of Continuing Education and is a freelance consultant in creativity and science education. Click here to visit Helen’s website.

John Corless lives and writes in County Mayo in the Irish Riviera. His poetry is a mix of political, satirical, ecclesiastical and rural and has been described as Paul Durcan meets The Sawdoctors. He has an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University (2008) and is currently researching for a PhD. He writes poetry, fiction and drama. His work has been published in magazines and collections worldwide. Some of his poems have been referred to the Attorney General for approval. His first collection of poems Are You Ready? (Salmon Poetry) was launched in June 2009.

Martin Goodman was awarded his PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster in January 2007. His first novel (On Bended Knees, 1992) was shortlisted for the Whitbread Award. After years of publishing non-fiction, incorporating experiences from his travels, which include periods teaching in China, Thailand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Italy, Slippery When Wet (Transita, 2006) marks his return to the novel. His other publications include I Was Carlos Castaneda (2001). Martin received an Authors' Foundation Award from the Society of Authors to support research work on his biography, Survive and Suffer: The Extreme Life of J.S.Haldane (Simon & Schuster, 2007). Click here to visit Martin's website.

George Green has been with Lancaster’s Department of English and Creative Writing for sixteen years, starting with an MA in 1992. He was awarded his PhD by the Department in 2006.  Although he used to write a lot of short stories he is now moving towards longer fiction. The novel he submitted for his PhD, Hound, published by Transworld in August 2003, is a take on The Tain, the Irish myth cycle. The follow-up, Hawk, was published by Transworld in 2005. He is now a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English & Creative Writing, and his research areas are Irish fiction, the Western and the nature of Biography. Click here to visit George’s website, and here for his departmental webpage.

Geraldine Green achieved a Distinction in her MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and is now working on her PhD at Lancaster, supported by an AHRC postgraduate award. Her first collection, The Skin, was published in 2002 by Flarestack. Her second collection, Passio, also published by Flarestack, was out in April 2006. She lives in Cumbria where she runs writing workshops, and is also a tutor for Continuing Education at Lancaster University. She is an Associate Editor of Poetry Bay. Click here for Geraldine's account of reading her poems in New York, and here for a profile of Geraldine. See a clip of Geraldine reading at: http://www.poetryvlog.com/.

Stephen Hanson was awarded an MA in Creative Writing in 2006. He has published three earlier collections of poems: Misspelt Youth, 1995, A Pack of Suggestives, 1996, and Burning Poems, 1999. He was awarded The Sir James Kilfedder Memorial Bursary for Arts 2003 and used the bursary to attend the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Co Monaghan, where he worked on completing his new collection of poetry, Knitted Wings, published in 2006 by Summer Palace Press.

Justin Hill achieved a Distinction in the Creative Writing MA at Lancaster University in 2000. Born in Grand Bahamas Island in 1971, Justin grew up in York and spent seven years as a volunteer aid worker in rural China and Eritrea. His first book, A Bend in the Yellow River, was published in 1998; another travel book, Ciao Asmara, was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Award, and his first novel, The Drink and Dream Teahouse (2002) was translated into ten languages and banned in China. It was awarded a Betty Trask Award and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. His second novel, Passing Under Heaven, was published in 2004. Click here for Justin's website.

Rhiannon Hooson lived in rural Mid-Wales until moving to the North-West six years ago. In 2002 she achieved a distinction in the Master's Degree in Creative Writing at Lancaster, and is currently in the process of completing her PhD in the Department of English and Creative Writing. Her poetry had been published in various journals, and her first collection is This Reckless Beauty (Wild Women Press, 2004).  Click here to read a review of Rhiannon’s work.

Alison MacLeod took Lancaster University’s MA in Creative Writing in 1987-88. In 1990, she started teaching literature and creative writing at the University of Chichester, where she is now Professor of Contemporary Fiction.  In 1996, her first novel, The Changeling, was published in the U.K. and U.S.  In 2005, The Wave Theory of Angels was published by Hamish Hamilton and Penguin Books in Canada.  Her short story collection, Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction, was released in September 2007 by Hamish Hamilton. 

Nigel McLoughlin completed both his MA and his PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. He is the author of the poetry collections: At The Waters' Clearing (Flambard / Black Mountain, 2001) and Songs For No Voices (Lagan, 2004).He is Field Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire, and his third collection of poems (the creative project from his PhD), Blood, has been published by Bluechrome (2005). His new book, Dissonances, is now out, also published by Bluechrome (2007). Click here to visit Nigel's profile.

Paul Magrs was born in the North East of England. He obtained three degrees from Lancaster University: a first-class BA in English, an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in English (1995). He taught the English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and now lectures part time at Manchester Metropolitan University. He devotes the rest of his time to writing fiction for both adults and children. He lives in Manchester and has published over twenty books, both fiction and non-fiction. Click here to visit Paul's website.

Ian Marchant graduated from Lancaster in 1992. He has written two novels, In Southern Waters (1999) and The Battle for Dole Acre (2001). He has run a second-hand bookshop, and is a comedian, singer song-writer and cabaret performer. His first work of non-fiction was Parallel Lines (2003) and his most recent book, The Longest Crawl, is published by Bloomsbury 2006. Click here for Ian's website.

Micheline Maylor achieved a distinction in the Creative Writing MA in 2001 at Lancaster. She moved back to Canada shortly after the completion of her degree, though she is pursuing a Ph.D. at Newcastle and has won both an International Research Scholarship and an Overseas Research Scholarship. Currently she is the editor of FreeFall magazine and the president of a non-profit the Alexandra Writers Centre in Calgary Canada. The publisher of The Full Depth is Wolsak & Wynn (Toronto, Canada).

Tariq Mehmood is studying for a PhD at Lancaster with an AHRC bursary from the Moving Manchester: Mediating Marginalties project. His first novel, Hand on the Sun, was published in 1983 and focused on the issues faced by Asian youth of the 1970's. His second novel, While There Is Light (2003) deals with some aspects of the case of the Bradford 12. This year he will have two books for children published. Tariq writes in two languages, English and Pothowari, his mother tongue (also called Pahari and Punjabi), which he has helped to bring into the written form, particularly in prose. Click here for the Guardian review of While There Is Light.

Andrew Miller received his PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster in 1997. In February 1996, after six years of writing, Ingenious Pain was accepted for publication by Sceptre (an imprint of Hodder and Stoughton). Casanova (Casanova in Love in the USA) was published in 1998, and his third novel, Oxygen, in September 2001. The books have been published in over twenty countries. The Optimists was published in March 2005. Click here for a profile of Andrew.

Jacob Polley achieved a Distinction in the Lancaster Creative Writing MA in 1997. His first book of poems, The Brink (Picador, 2003), was a Poetry Book Society Choice, and was short-listed for five awards, including the T.S. Eliot, John Llewellyn Rhys and Forward prizes. He is Visiting Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts for 2005-2007 at Trinity College, Cambridge. Little Gods was published by Picador in 2006.  Click here for a review of The Brink and here for an interview with Jacob Polley.

Ray Robinson was awarded a Creative Writing PhD at Lancaster University in 2006. He was already a practicing writer, and had also successfully completed an MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster in 1999. Half way through his second year of Ph.D. study, Electricity was accepted for publication by Picador (released in trade paperback on March 17th 2006). His new novel, The Man Without, will be published by Picador in July 2008. Click here for a more detailed account of the writing of Electricity, and here for the Guardian review.

Monique Roffey's first novel, Sun Dog (Scribner), was published in 2002 (published in the US as August Frost in 2004). Since then she has had short stories published in various anthologies (most recently New Writing 13) and has worked as a Centre Director for The Arvon Foundation. She took up an RLF post at Sussex University in October 2006. Monique has recently been awarded her PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster. It takes the form of a novel, entitled The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, published in 2009 by Simon & Schuster.  Click here for Monique's website.

Ian Seed is editor of Shadowtrain books and webzine. His poems, fiction, translations and reviews have appeared in magazines such as Green Integer Review, PN Review, Shearsman, Stride, and Tears in the Fence. Anonymous Intruder is his first full-length collection.  Click here for more information on Ian's collection.

Sarah Stovell committed herself to writing fiction after an Arvon course in 2003 and followed this with an MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster University.   Mothernight  became part of her MA project, although it was not finished for another year. Sarah now lives and writes in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.  She works as an antiquarian bookseller and part-time teacher of Creative Writing. Click here for Sarah's own site. 

Deborah Swift has worked in the theatre and at the BBC as a set and costume designer. She has a BA in Theatre Design and an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. She lives in Windermere, Cumbria.  The Lady's Slipper is her first novel, and she is now working on a companion piece.  Visit Deborah's website.

Abigail Zammit's Voices from the Land of Trees is forthcoming in June 2007, published by Smokestack Books. Its poems, which tell the story of Guatemala's thirty-six years of civil war, are spoken by many different voices - mothers, missionaries, children, soldiers, guerrillas, Indians, students and journalists - each struggling to be heard above the sound of gunfire and weeping, each trying to break the silence.