Michael Blackburn was an editor of Poetry & Audience, the poetry magazine produced by The School of English at the University of Leeds and an editor of Stand Magazine based in Newcastle. He founded the poetry press, Jackson's Arm, and co-organised the readings at the Morden Tower in Newcastle. He set up a literary magazine, Harry's Hand, and became Lincolnshire’s first Literature Animateur. He also established Sunk Island Publishing and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He was the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Lincoln where he also taught English Literature and Creative Writing.

The Ascending Boy is a poetry collection published in 1999.