John Burnside teaches at the University of St Andrews. His poetry collections include Feast Days (1992), winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, The Asylum Dance (2000), winner of the Whitbread Poetry Award and Black Cat Bone, (2011) which won both the Forward and the T. S. Eliot Prize. In 2011, he received the Petrarca Preis for poetry.

His novels include The Devil's Footprints, (2007) Glister (2008) and A Summer of Drowning (2011). He is also the author of a collection of short stories, Burning Elvis (2000), and two memoirs, A Lie About My Father (2006) and Waking Up in Toytown (2010).

John Burnside's latest poetry collection is All One Breath, (Jonathan Cape, 2014).