Liz Lochhead

Liz Lochhead is a Scottish poet and dramatist, originally from Newarthill in North Lanarkshire. In the early 1970s she joined Philip Hobsbaum's writers' group, a crucible of creative activity - other members were Alasdair Gray, James Kelman and Tom Leonard. Her plays include Blood and Ice, Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (1987), Perfect Days (2000) and a highly acclaimed adaptation into Scots of Molière's Tartuffe (1985). Her adaptation of Euripides' Medea won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award in 2001. Like her work for theatre, her poetry is alive with vigorous speech idioms; collections include True Confessions and New Clichés (1985), Bagpipe Muzak (1991) and Dreaming Frankenstein: and Collected Poems (1984). She has collaborated with Dundee singer-songwriter Michael Marra.In January 2011 she was named as the second Scots Makar, or national poet, succeeding Edwin Morgan who had died the previous year.