Jem Poster is the author of two novels, Courting Shadows (Sceptre, 2002) and Rifling Paradise (Sceptre, 2006). Both have been highly praised: of Courting Shadows, Julie Myerson wrote in The Guardian that it is ‘as intelligent, daring and profound as it is highly, bewitchingly readable…a fantastically tightly written, read-every-word novel’, while Rifling Paradise was described in the Times Literary Supplement as ‘immediately gripping…an epic tale whose figures in a landscape encapsulate a turning point in history’. Jem has won first prize in both the Cardiff International Poetry Competition and the Peterloo Poets Open Poetry Competition; his poetry collection, Brought to Light, was published by Bloodaxe in 2001. He is Academic Director of the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival’s creative writing programme and holds the Chair of Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University.
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