Draycott, Jane

(1954- )

   Jane Draycott studied in London and Bristol, where she took a postgraduate degree in medieval English literature. She has worked as a teacher in London, Tanzania and Strasbourg, and lectured in creative writing at the universities of Reading and Oxford and online for the Trace Online Writing Centre, part of Nottingham Trent University. She now lives in Oxfordshire and teaches at the universities of Oxford and Lancaster. She is currently resident writer at Henley's River and Rowing Museum, and is also Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. In 2002 she won the Keats Shelley Prize, and in 2004, she was named as one of the Next Generation poets. She is a mentor on the Crossing Borders creative writing scheme, set up by the British Council and Lancaster University. Her poetry publications: Prince Rupert's Drop, 1994. No Theatre, 1996. Christina the Astonishing, 1998. The Night Tree, 2004. Tideway, 2002. Some of her poems: "Circus," "Eldorado," "Search," "What Matters."

   Sources: A Little Book of Comfort. Anthony Guest, ed. HarperCollins, 1993. Biography of Jane Draycott, The Poetry Book Society, (http://www.poetrybooks.co.uk/PBS/pbs_draycott_jane.asp). Biography and Poems of Jane Draycott, Poetry Workshop (http://www.btinternet.com/Draycott, Janecarpenter/clock11.htm). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Book of Sonnets. John Fuller, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).