Jackie Kay was born and brought up in Scotland. She has published three collections of poetry for adults:

• The Adoption Papers, winner of a Forward Prize, a Saltire Award and a Scottish Arts Council Book Award)
• Other Lovers, which won the Somerset Maugham Award
• Off Colour, which was shortlisted for the 1999 T.S. Eliot Award

Her first novel, Trumpet (Picador, 1998) won the Guardian Fiction Prize, a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and the Author’s Club First Novel Award. It was also on the shortlist for the IMPAC award.

She has written for the stage and television, and a libretto of hers, Twice Through The Heart, was performed at the Aldeburgh Festival and the Queen Elizabeth Hall with composer Mark Anthony Turnage. Her book about the blues singer Bessie Smith, Bessie, is published by Absolute Press.

Her new collection of short stories, Why Don’t You Stop Talking, was published by Picador to great acclaim in 2002. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is Specialist Advisor to the Literature Department at the Scottish Arts Council. and teaches creative writing at Newcastle University. Her new collection of poems, Life Mask, is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and has just been published by Bloodaxe. She lives in Manchester with her son.