Dunmore, Helen

(1952- )

   Born in Yorkshire, she graduated in English from York University, then taught in Finland for two years. She has worked as a writer, reader and performer, taught poetry and creative writing courses for the Arvon Foundation, and taken part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools program. She has also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts. She also reviews for The Times and The Observer, contributes to arts programs on BBC Radio, and has been a judge for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year award. Her novel Zennor in Darkness (1993) won the McKitterick Prize, and A Spell of Winter (1995) won the first Orange Prize for Fiction. She was awarded honorary doctorate of literature from the universities of Glamorgan (1998) and Exeter (2001). She has published seven collections of poetry; the first was The Apple Fall 1983; the last was Snollygoster and Other Poems (2001). Some of her poems: "Seal Run," "The Bride's Nights in a Strange Village," "The Horse Landscape," "The Parachute Packers," "The Sea Skater," "Wild Strawberries."

   Sources: Golden Treasury of the Best Songs & Lyrical Poems in the English Language. Francis Turner Palgrave, ed. Oxford University Press (1964, Sixth edition, updated by John Press, 1994). Poetry with an Edge. Neil Astley, ed. Bloodaxe Books, 1988. Shades of Green. Anne Harvey, ed. Greenwillow Books, 1991. 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 Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Virago Book of Love Poetry. Wendy Mulford, ed. Virago Press, 1990. Who's Who. London: A & C Black, 2005.