Having worked for many years in both conventional and alternative education, Lindsay Clarke is a freelance writer living in Somerset, whose work has been widely translated. His novel The Chymical Wedding won the Whitbread Fiction Award in 1989 and more recently The Water Theatre was long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin International Literary Award. He is an Associate of the MA Creative Writing Programme at Cardiff University and Creative Consultant to the educational work of the Pushkin Trust in Northern Ireland.