Gillian Allnutt was born in London but spent much of her childhood in Newcastle upon Tyne, and now lives in Co. Durham. Her collections Nantucket and the Angel and Lintel were both shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, and Lintel was a Poetry Book Society Choice. Her Bloodaxe retrospective, How the Bicycle Shone: New & Selected Poems (2007), draws on six published books plus a new collection, Wolflight, and was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Her latest collection is indwelling (2013). She has also published Berthing: A Poetry Workbook (NEC/Virago, 1991), and was co-editor of The New British Poetry (Paladin, 1988) and formerly poetry editor of City Limits. She received the Northern Rock Foundation Writer's Award in 2005.