:: Nick Laird was born in 1975 in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, and studied English at the University of Cambridge, where he won the Quiller-Couch Award for creative writing. He has worked as a lawyer, has lived in Warsaw and Boston—where he was a visiting fellow at Harvard University—and now lives in London. He has also written a novel, Utterly Monkey. To a Fault won the 2005 Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, the 2005 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, and the 2005 Ireland Chair for Poetry Award; was shortlisted for the 2004 Forward Poetry Prize for First Collection; and was the only poetry book longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.