Paul Farley was born in Liverpool in 1965 and studied at the Chelsea School of Art. He has published four collections of poetry with Picador, most recently The Dark Film (2012). His other books include Edgelands (with Michael Symmons Roberts, 2011), and he has also edited a selection of John Clare's poetry. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a frequent broadcaster, he has received numerous awards including Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, the Whitbread Poetry Prize and the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters.