John Burnside, Writer in Residence at Dundee University, was born in Dunferline in 1955. His first poetry collection, The Hoop was published in 1988, followed by Common Knowledge in 1991. He won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and his 1994 book The Myth of the Twin was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and one of twenty collections selected for the Arts Council/Poetry Society New Generation Poets promotion.