Linda Anderson recently retired as Professor of English from Newcastle University where she established the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts, the Newcastle Poetry Festival and the Bloodaxe Archive. She is now the Chair of Bloodaxe Books. In 2020, after publishing academic books, including on Elizabeth Bishop, she published her first poetry collection, The Station Before, with Pavilion Poetry. It was shortlisted in 2021 for the Seamus Heaney First Collection prize.