Fiona Sampson has published fourteen books – including poetry, philosophy of language and books on writing process – of which the most recent are Common Prayer (Carcanet 2007, shortlisted for the 2007 T.S.Eliot Prize), On Listening (essays: 2007) and Writing: Self and Reflexivity (with Celia Hunt, Macmillan, 2005). Earlier books include The Self on the Page (1999, with Celia Hunt) and Creative Writing in Health and Social Care (2005); The Distance Between Us (Seren, 2001) and The Healing Word (Poetry Society, 1999). Her awards include the Newdigate Prize; 'Trumpeldor Beach' was short-listed for the 2006 Forward Prize; and she has been widely translated, with eight books in translation, including Patuvachki Dnevnik (Travel Diary), awarded the 2003 Zlaten Prsten (Macedonia). Other prizes include writers' awards form the Arts Councils of England and Wales and the Society of Authors, and, in the US, the Literary Review's annual Charles Angoff Award. After a first life as a violinist, she was educated at the Universities of Oxford and Nijmegen.  She has a PhD in the philosophy of language and was AHRC Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University in 2002-5.  She is Fellow in Creativity at the University of Warwick/RSC Capital Centre.  She consults internationally on writing in health care, a field she pioneered in the UK, and contributes regiularly to The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Liberal  and BBC Radio 3's 'The Verb'.  Her many translations include volumes of Jaan Kaplinski and of Amir Or, an anthology of younger Central European poets, and Orient Express, of which she was founding editor. She is the editor of Poetry Review.