Tessa Ransford was born in India, educated in Scotland and has lived all her adult life in Scotland apart from eight years working in Pakistan in the 1960s. She has published fifteen books of poetry since the mid-70s and has been translated and published in Germany, Austria, France, Denmark and Japan. Tessa founded the Scottish Poetry Library in 1984 and was director there until its establishment in new premises in 1999. She has an honorary degree for services to Scottish literature from the University of Paisley and in 2000 she was awarded an OBE for her services to the SPL. Tessa was also founder/organiser of the School of Poets poetry workshop (1981-99) and editor of Lines Review poetry magazine for ten years. Founder of Scottish pamphlet poetry and active in Scottish PEN, she is also now the Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at Queen Margaret University.