Paul Farley was born in Liverpool and studied at the Chelsea School of Art. He has published six collections of poetry with Picador, including: The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You (1998), which won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection; The Ice Age (2002), which won the Whitbread Poetry Award; and The Mizzy (2019), which was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Costa Book Awards. His other awards include an RSL Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has written and presented many drama and documentary features for BBC Radio and is a freelance writer and broadcaster. Author photo © Urszula Soltys