Carol Ann Duffy was born in Glasgow in 1955. She moved with her family to England when she was 6, and was brought up as a Catholic in Stafford, where she was educated at St Joseph's Convent and Stafford Girls' High School. During the 1970s she studied for a BA in philosophy at Liverpool University.

She was a passionate reader from an early age, and she always wanted to be a writer. She first worked as a game-show and joke writer for Granada Television. During the 1980s she lived in London, working as a writer-in-residence in East End schools before becoming a full-time writer and dramatist in 1985. She currently lives in Manchester and dreams of becoming a professional poker player.

Bibliography

Published collections of Duffy's poetry include Standing Female Nude (Anvil Press, 1985), Selling Manhattan (Anvil Press, 1987), The Other Country (Anvil Press, 1990) and Mean Time (Anvil Press, 1993). She has also worked as a dramatist, scripting several adaptations of Grimm's Fairy Tales for the Young Vic's acclaimed 'Grimm Tales' productions.