The poet, novelist, critic, dramatist and broadcaster Lavinia Greenlaw was born in London, where she still lives, in 1962. She was a book editor and art administrator until 1994. Her first collection Night Photograph (1993) was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award and Forward Poetry Prize. The title poem of her 1997 collection, A World Where News Travelled Slowly, won the Forward Prize. Her latest collection Minsk, (2003), was shortlisted for the Forward, Whitbread and T S Eliot poetry prizes.