CATHERINE ANN CULLEN was born in Drogheda in 1961. She is the inaugural Poet in Residence at Poetry Ireland and an award-winning poet, songwriter and children's writer. Catherine Ann Cullen has published three collections: A Bone in My Throat (Doghouse, 2007), Strange Familiar (Doghouse, 2013) and The Other Now (Dedalus Press, 2016). Two of her children’s books, The Magical, Mystical, Marvelous Coat (2001) and Thirsty Baby (2003), were published by Little, Brown in the US, the former winning a gold award for Poetry and Folklore. Her latest children’s book, All Better! Poems on Illness and Recovery (Little Island, 2019), was reimagined from Latvian. Catherine Ann Cullen has twice won the Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award, was joint first in the JoyceCycle Poetry Competition 2019 and has been shortlisted for many prizes including the Listowel Writers Week Irish Poem of the Year 2020. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Middlesex University. She has presented at international conferences on ballads and on children’s literature, and published several chapters on broadside ballads. In 2020, Catherine Ann Cullen organised “Living Ghosts: A Tribute to Frank Harte in Poetry and Song” and curated Irish participation in the Irish Spanish Latin American Literary Festival. Her “Behind the Lines” series of videos, recorded during lockdown, has Irish poets discussing their own or favourite poems on the Leaving Certificate. Another lockdown project is a crowd-sourced rhyming alphabet of Dublin. She was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship 2018 and has received bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland and Irish Writers Centre. Catherine Ann Cullen’s work as A&L Goodbody Writer in Residence in East Wall won her the nationwide B2A award of Best Use of Creativity in the Community 2017. She works on the Trinity Access Programmes and is a former producer for RTÉ Radio 1. (See catherineanncullen.wordpress.com)