Isobel Dixon

Isobel Dixon grew up in South Africa, where her debut collection Weather Eye (Carapace, 2001) won the Sanlam and the Olive Schreiner Prizes. Her second collection A Fold in the Map (Salt, 2007), which is partly about her father's illness and death, was described as 'fine, warm, sensuous' (Kate Clanchy) and 'powerful' and 'poignant' (The Financial Times). Clive James has written that 'Isobel Dixon was born with the gift of lyricism as natural speech' and her new book The Tempest Prognosticator (Salt, 2011) has been called 'a virtuoso collection' by J M Coetzee and described by David Morley as 'life-affirming, funny ... possessing exquisite vigour and panache'.

Her work is included in several anthologies, including New Writing, Penguin's Poems for Love, The Forward Book of Poetry 2009, and the pamphlets Unfold (2002) and Ask for It by Name (2007). She has been commissioned to write poems for the British Film Institute and her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Financial Times, The Guardian, Magma, The Manhattan Review, and Southwest Review, among others, and some poems have been translated into Dutch, German, French and Turkish.

She has been co-curator of several multi-poet events, including the Pink Floyd tribute 'On a Trip to Cirrus Minor' and took part in Psycho Poetica at the BFI, South Bank and Latitude Festival. She was involved in the record-breaking international Authors for Peace event on Peace Day 2010, and Women for Women International's 'Join Me on the Bridge' project for Women's Day 2011.

She lives in Cambridge, England. www.isobeldixon.com

[Author photo by Jo Kearney: www.jokearneyphotos.com ]