Patricia McCarthy is half Irish, half English. After Trinity College, Dublin, she lived abroad for several years but has been settled for a long time in the countryside in East Sussex. She was the editor of Agenda for more than twenty years. She won the National Poetry Competition 2013. She has several poetry collections to her name, the latest being Hand in Hand (Based on Tristan and Iseult), and a pamphlet, Bad Summer, Dare Gale Press. Her poems have been published widely in the UK, Ireland, the US.