Lochhead, Liz

(1947- )

   Born in Motherwell, Scotland, she studied painting at the Glasgow School of Art (1965-70) and during the early seventies took part in a writing group co-coordinated by Philip Hobsbaum (see entry), then worked as an art teacher until she became a full-time writer in 1979. Her revue Sugar and Spite was staged in 1978 and in the same year she was awarded a Scottish Writers Exchange Fellowship to Canada. She was writer in residence at Edinburgh University (1986-1987) and writer in residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1988. She has published several stage plays and her poetry has been published in a number of collections, including Penguin Modern Poets 4 (1995). She was awarded an honorary degree by Edinburgh University in 2000. Some of her poetry publications: Memo for Spring, 1972 (which won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award). The Grim Sisters, 1981. Dreaming Frankenstein, 1984. Three Scottish Poets, 1996. The Color of Black and White: Poems, 1984-2003. Some of her poems: "An Abortion," "Bagpipe Muzak, Glasgow 1990," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Mirror's Song," "My Mother's Suitors," "Riddle-Me-Ree," "The Furies," "The Hickie."

   Sources: 100 Poems on the Underground. Gerald Benson, Judith Cherniak and Cicely Herb, eds. Cassell, 1991. Antholog y of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry. Keith Tuma, ed. Oxford University Press, 2001. Biography of Liz Lochhead (http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth154&state=index%3Dl). Biography of Liz Lochhead (http://members.tripod.com/Lochhead, Lizgiggly/liz_lochhead.html). Love's Witness: Five Centuries of Love Poetry by Women. Jill Hollis, ed. Carroll and Graf, Inc., 1993. The Columbia Antholog y of British Poetry. Carl Woodring and James Shapiro, eds. Columbia University Press, 1995. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Faber Book of Seductions. Jenny Newman, ed. Faber and Faber, 1988. The New British Poetry, 1968-88. Gillian Allnutt, Fred D'Aguiar and Ken Edwards, eds. Grafton Books, 1989. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.