Face to face

Penelope Shuttle was born in 1947 in Middlesex, and has lived in Falmouth, Cornwall since 1970, a place which often inspires her current work. Her husband, Peter Redgrove, died in 2003, and her latest poetry collection, Redgrove's Wife (2006), is a book of lament and celebration about his life and death, and the loss of her father. Redgrove's Wife was shortlisted for the 2007 T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year).

She received an Eric Gregory Award in 1974, and her first full-length poetry collection was The Orchard Upstairs (1980). This has been followed by seven further collections, including: The Lion from Rio (1986); Taxing the Rain (1992); Building a City for Jamie (1996); and A Leaf Out of His Book (1999). A book of her Selected Poems: 1980-1996, was published in 1998. Three of her collections have been Poetry Book Society Recommendations.

She is also the author of five earlier novels, including All the Usual Hours of Sleeping (1969); and The Mirror of the Giant (1980). With her husband, she published two non-fiction books: The Wise Wound: Eve's Curse and Everywoman (1978), dealing with the psychology and creative aspect of menstruation and its part in redefining the role of women; and its sequel, Alchemy for Women: Personal Transformation Through Dreams and the Female Cycle (1995).

Penelope Shuttle received a Cholmondeley Award in 2007. She reads her poetry throughout the UK, is an experienced poetry tutor, and is currently working on a ninth collection of poetry and a prose memoir.