Sir Andrew Motion

Poet, critic, biographer, novelist and teacher

Chair , 2014

From 1976 to 1981, Andrew Motion worked at the University of Hull. There, he became friends with the poet Philip Larkin, whose biography he later wrote; subsequently, he was Editor of 'Poetry Review' and Editorial Director at Chatto & Windus. He returned to academia in 1989 and is now Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Andrew Motion has received numerous awards for his work, including the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award and the Whitbread Prize for Biography. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1999 and was knighted for his services to poetry in 2009. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, co-founder and co-director of the Poetry Archive and Poetry by Heart, and President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England.