in the event

JOHN BIRTWHISTLE was born in Scunthorpe in 1946. His poetry has been recognised by an Eric Gregory Award, an Arts Council bursary, Arts Council creative writing fellowships, and a fellowship at the University of Southampton. His collection Our Worst Suspicions was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. He has had three libretti set and performed; of these, David Blake’s The Plumber’s Gift was staged by English National Opera and broadcast on Radio 3. For twelve years, he was a Lecturer in English at the University of York, teaching mainly the seventeenth century and Romantic periods. From 2012 to 2017, he was a literary contributor and eventually an Associate Editor of the quarterly BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care. Birtwhistle is married to a Consultant Anaesthetist and since 1992 he has lived in Sheffield with his family.