Fiona Sampson was born in London. After a brief career as a concert violinist, she studied at Oxford University, where she won the Newdigate Prize. Her collections of poetry include Folding the Real (2001); The Distance Between Us (2005); and Common Prayer (2007), short-listed for the 2007 T. S. Eliot Prize. She was short-listed for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Single Poem) in 2006. Since 2005, she has been the editor of Poetry Review and in 2009, edited the Poetry Book Society Recommended A Century of Poetry Review. She contributes regularly to radio and to a number of publications, including The Guardian , the Irish Times and The Liberal . Fiona Sampson received a Cholmondeley Award in 2009. Her latest collection of poetry, Rough Music (2010) was shortlisted for the 2010 Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year) and the 2010 T. S. Eliot Prize. In 2011 she was elected a Fellow and a Council Member of the Royal Society of Literature. She joins the MFA Program in Creative Writing this fall for a term as Visiting Professor of Poetry.
The author will be available to sign books after the reading. As always, books will be available for purchase on site.