Biography

Adam O’Riordan was born in Manchester in 1982. He read English at Oxford University and later won a scholarship to study under Andrew Motion at the University of London, where he was awarded the inaugural Peters, Fraser and Dunlop poetry prize and shortly afterwards an Arts Council England writer’s award. His pamphlet Queen of the Cotton Cities won an Eric Gregory award while his pamphlet Home was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. He is co-editor of The Shape of the Dance, the selected prose of Michael Donaghy. In 2008 Adam O’Riordan became the youngest Poet-in-Residence at The Wordsworth Trust, the Centre for British Romanticism. He writes regularly on poetry and language for Guardian.co.uk. His first collection In the Flesh will be published by Chatto and Windus in July 2010.