Alan Gillis was born in Belfast in 1973. His fifth poetry collection, The Readiness, is published by Picador in 2020. Previously, Somebody, Somewhere won the Strong Award for the best first collection in Ireland, while Hawks and Doves was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. In 2014, he was selected as a ‘New Generation Poet’ by the Poetry Book Society in the UK. As a critic he has published Irish Poetry in the 1930s and The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry (both Oxford University Press), among other essays and edited books. Formerly editor of Edinburgh Review, he has lived and worked in Scotland since 2006, where he teaches at The University of Edinburgh.