Rupert Loydell is Senior Lecturer in English with Creative Writing at University College Falmouth, and the editor of Stride and With magazines. He is the author of many books of poetry, including A Conference of Voices and the forthcoming Boombox!, as well as several collaborative works; he also paints small abstract paintings. He lives in a creekside village in Cornwall with his family and far too many books and CDs. Andy Brown is Director of the Centre for Creative Writing at Exeter University. His recent books include Hunting the Kinnayas (Stride, 2004), From a Cliff (Arc, 2002) and of Science (Worple, 2001, with David Morley). Andy Brown studied Ecology, a discipline that informs both his poetry and his criticism, which appears in The Salt Companion to the Works of Lee Harwood (Salt, 2006). He was previously a Centre Director for the Arvon Foundation's creative writing courses, and has been a recording musician. Alan Halsey was born in London. He ran The Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye from 1979-96 and moved to Sheffield in 1997, continuing to work as a specialist bookseller and as editor of West House Books. His major publications include Five Years Out (1989), The Text of Shelley's Death (1995), A Robin Hood Book (1996) and Wittgenstein's Devil (2000). He has written several short studies of Thomas Lovell Beddoes and re-edited his Death's Jest-Book in 2003. Luke Kennard is the author of four volumes of poetry and two pamphlets. He lectures in creative writing at the University of Birmingham. Robert Sheppard is mainly a poet, whose selected poems, History or Sleep, appears from Shearsman Books, and who has poetry anthologised in Anthology of Twentieth Century British and Irish Poetry (OUP) and Reality Street Book of Sonnets, among others. His short fiction is published as The Only Life (Knives Forks and Spoons Press), and is found amidst his 2015 autobiographical work, Words Out of Time, and in several places in his 2016 publication Unfinish (Veer Publications). He is Professor of Poetry and Poetics at Edge Hill University, where in 2016 they celebrate ten years of the Edge Hill Prize. Sandra Tappenden was born in Kent. Previously a Creative Writing tutor for Exeter College, and MIND, she also gigged with an experimental/improvisational multi-media collective who once, but memorably, managed to empty the Drewe Arms Jazz Club. Her work has been published consistently in poetry magazines over a period of fifteen years. Her first collection was 'Bags of Mostly Water' (2003). She now lives in Plymouth. Scott Thurston began writing in the poetry scene situated around Gilbert Adair's Sub-Voicive Poetry reading series and Bob Cobbing's New River Project workshops in London in the late eighties. In 1995 he moved to Poland where he taught English as a foreign language. He returned to the UK in 1997 and completed a Ph.D. on Linguistically Innovative Poetry. He currently lectures in English and Creative Writing at The University of Salford and lives in Liverpool. He edits The Radiator, a journal of contemporary poetics. His books include Turns (with Robert Sheppard) (Ship of Fools/Radiator: Liverpool, 2003), Sleight of Foot (Reality Street Editions: London, 1996) (Selection), State(s)walk(s) (Writers Forum: London, 1994) and Poems Nov 89 - Jun 91 (Writers Forum: London, 1991). Hold: Poems 1994-2004 is due out from Shearsman books in 2006. Angela Topping is a freelance poet with twenty years experience as an English teacher. She was Head of Literacy and Oracy at Upton Hall School until 2009. Her poems have been widely published, are used in verse speaking festivals all over the world, and feature in textbooks and on the internet education sites of various organisations including Amnesty International and Oxfam. She is a seasoned poet-in-schools for The Poetry Society and Windows Project, Liverpool. She has mentored many young writers and has tutored creative writing courses for all age groups. Her poems have been performed in a wide range of venues including The Greenbelt Festival, Manchester Poetry Festival, and The Bluecoat Arts Centre Liverpool. Steven Waling was born in Accrington, Lancashire in 1958, and has lived in Manchester since 1980. He won the Smith/Doorstop Pamphlet Competition with his first publication, Riding Shotgun, in 1988, and also that year was a prizewinner in the Lancaster Festival Poetry Competition. He has since published four books, including Calling Myself On The Phone (Smith/Doorstop)
