Mark Pajak was born in Merseyside in 1987 and currently lives in Scotland. His work has received a Northern Writers’ Award, a Society of Authors’ Grant, an Eric Gregory Award and a UNESCO international writing residency. He is a past recipient of the Bridport Prize and has three times been included in the National Poetry Competition winners list. Slide, Mark’s debut collection, was shortlisted for both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the John Pollard International Poetry Prize and won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize. Author photo © Robert Peet