A Choosing

During her career Liz Lochhead has been described variously as a poet, feminist playwright, translator and broadcaster but has said that 'when somebody asks me what I do I usually say writer. The most precious thing to me is to be a poet. If I were a playwright, I'd like to be a poet in the theatre.' Liz Lochhead has a large and devoted audience and delights audiences where she goes.



Scottish poet and playwright Liz Lochhead was born in Motherwell in 1947. After studying at Glasgow School of Art she taught at art schools in Glasgow and Bristol while working on her poetry. She is a Fellow of Glasgow School of Art, an Honorary Doctor of Letters of Glasgow University, a Fellow of RSAMD and of Glasgow Institute of Art, and is an Honorary President of the Scottish Poetry Library. Her poetry collections include Dreaming Frankenstein (Polygon 1984), True Confessions and New Cliches (Polygon 1985), Bagpipe Muzak (Penguin 1991), and The Colour of Black and White: Poems 1984-2003 (Polygon 2003). Her plays include Tartuffe (Polygon 1986), Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (Penguin 1989) and the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award-winning Medea (Nick Hern Books 2000). Liz Lochhead lives in Glasgow.