Lavinia Greenlaw

Primarily a poet, Greenlaw has also written novels, short stories, plays and non-fiction. She has made radio documentaries. Her work for music includes the libretto for the opera Peter Pan composed by Richard Ayres (Staatsoper Stuttgart/Komische Oper Berlin/Welsh National Opera and Royal Opera House, 2015). She has made contributions to the London Review of Books, The Guardian and The New Yorker.

After judging the 2010 Manchester Poetry Prize, Greenlaw chaired in 2014 the judging panel for the inaugural Folio Prize. She is a Council member of the Royal Society of Literature and a former Chair of the Poetry Society.

Greenlaw taught at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She served as professor of creative writing at the University of East Anglia from 2007 to 2013, and as a visiting professor at King's College London (2015–2016) and Freie Universität Berlin (2017). She currently holds the post of Professor of Creative Writing (Poetry) at Royal Holloway, University of London.

For her 2001 first novel, Mary George of Allnorthover, Greenlaw won the French Prix du Premier Roman. She has been shortlisted for a number of literary awards, including the Whitbread Book Award (now the Costa Book Awards) and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. Her short story "We Are Watching Something Terrible Happening" was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2013.

Greenlaw's career as a freelance artist, critic and broadcaster began in 1994. She became the first artist-in-residence at the Science Museum (1994–1995), and has since held residences at the Royal Festival Hall, at a London solicitors' firm (1997–1998), and at the Royal Society of Medicine (2004). In 2013 she won an Engagement Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust. Her sound work Audio Obscura was commissioned in 2011 by Artangel and Manchester International Festival, and heard at Manchester Piccadilly station in July 2011 and London's St Pancras International Station in September and October 2011. It won the 2011 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry, the judges calling it "groundbreaking".

Lavinia Greenlaw received an Eric Gregory Award in 1990, an Arts Council Writers' Award in 1995, a Cholmondeley Award, and a Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship. In 1994 she was also chosen as one of 20 New Generation Poets. In 1997 she won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem for "A World Where News Travelled Slowly", the title poem from her second main collection.

Greenlaw went on to read modern arts at Kingston Polytechnic. She then studied at the London College of Printing and gained an MA in art history from the Courtauld Institute. She was employed as an editor at Imperial College of Science and Technology (1985–1986) and with the publishers Allison and Busby (1986–1987), and subsequently with Earthscan (1988–90). She also worked as an arts administrator for Southbank Centre (1990–1991) and the London Arts Board (1991–1994).

Greenlaw appeared as a "talking head" on the BBC documentaries Top of the Pops: The Story of 1976 (2011) and The Joy of the Single (2012).

Lavinia Greenlaw (born 30 July 1962) is an English poet and novelist. She won the Prix du Premier Roman with her first novel and her poetry has been shortlisted for awards that include the T. S. Eliot Prize, Forward Prize and Whitbread Poetry Prize. Her 2014 Costa Poetry Award was for A Double Sorrow: A Version of Troilus and Criseyde. Greenlaw currently holds the post of Professor of Creative Writing (Poetry) at Royal Holloway, University of London.