Neil Astley is the editor and founder of Bloodaxe Books. He has published over 20 other anthologies, most notably the Staying Alive trilogy and three collaborations with Pamela Robertson-Pearce, Soul Food (2007) and the DVD-anthologies In Person: 30 Poets (2008) and In Person: World Poets (2017), as well as two novels, The End of My Tether (Scribner), which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award in 2002, and The Sheep Who Changed the World (Flambard, 2005). He has lived in the North East since 1975, latterly in Northumberland's Tarset valley.