Kerry Hardie was born in 1951 and grew up in County Down. She now lives in County Kilkenny with her husband, the writer Seán Hardie. Her poems have won many prizes, including the Michael Hartnett Award for Poetry in 2005. Her poems have featured in six Bloodaxe anthologies: Staying Alive, Being Alive, Being Human, The Poetry Cure, The New Irish Poets and Modern Women Poets.

She has published five collections with Gallery Press in Ireland: A Furious Place (1996), Cry for the Hot Belly (2000), The Sky Didn’t Fall (2003), The Silence Came Close (2006) and Only This Room (2009). Her latest book of poetry is Selected Poems (Gallery Press, Ireland & Bloodaxe Books, Britain, 2011). Her first novel, Hannie Bennet’s Winter Marriage appeared in 2000; her second, The Bird Woman was published in 2006. Kerry Hardie is a member of Aosdána.

Choman Hardi has published three books of poetry in Kurdish, but now writes in English, and Life for Us is her first English collection. She studied philosophy and psychology at Oxford and later at University College London, and has recently completed doctorate research at the University of Kent on the mental health of Kurdish women refugees between the clash of cultures.

Josef Hanzlík, born in 1938, is one of the leading middle-generation Czech poets. He has published ten books of poems, as well as translations from Russian, Serbo-Croat and English.

Maggie Hannan was born in 1962 in Wiltshire, and lived in Derbyshire, Cumbria and Newcastle before moving to Hull. She won a Gregory Award in 1990. Her poems have since been published in many important anthologies, including No Holds Barred, The Gregory Anthology, The New Lake Poets, The New Poetry, Making for Planet Alice and New Blood. Published by Bloodaxe in 1995, Liar, Jones was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection