Benjamin Myers was born in Durham, UK, in 1976. He is in an award-winning author, poet and journalist, translated into several languages. His novel Beastings (2014) won the Portico Prize For Literature and was recipient of the Northern Writers' Award. Pig Iron (2012) was the winner of the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize and runner-up in The Guardian's Not The Booker Prize. A controversial combination of biography and novel, Richard (2010) was a bestseller, chosen as a Sunday Times book of the year. Myers' 'folk crime' novels Turning Blue (2016) and These Darkening Days (2017) were widely acclaimed by critics including Val McDermid. His latest book Under The Rock, a non-fiction work, has been described as "a bold and original exploration of nature and literature that firmly establishes him firmly among the first ranks of Britain's most exciting writers of landscape and place." The Gallows Pole was the recipient of Roger Deakin Award and longlisted for both the 2018 Walter Scott Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize. As a journalist he has written about music, the arts and nature for publications including New Statesman, The Guardian, The Spectator, NME, Mojo, Time Out, New Scientist, Caught By The River, Record Collector, Vice, The Quietus, Melody Maker, Metal Hammer, Alternative Press, and many others. His short stories and poetry have appeared in dozens of print and small press anthologies, chapbooks and underground obscurities. His new novel The Offing is published by Bloomsbury in August 2019. Benjamin Myers currently lives in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire, UK.