Michael Schmidt FRSL, poet, scholar, critic and translator, was born in Mexico in 1947; he studied at Harvard and at Wadham College, Oxford, before settling in England. Among his many publications are several collections of poems and a novel, The Colonist (1981), about a boy's childhood in Mexico. He is general editor of PN Review and founder as well as managing director of Carcanet Press. He lives in Manchester. John McAuliffe grew up in County Kerry, Ireland. The Gallery Press has published his five poetry collections, including A Better Life (2002) which was shortlisted for a Forward Prize. He teaches poetry at the University of Manchester's Centre for New Writing.

