Caroline Bird is an award-winning poet and playwright. She won The Forward Prize for best poetry collection in 2020, and was shortlisted for the Costa Prize 2020, the TS Eliot Prize 2017, the Ted Hughes Award 2017, and the Dylan Thomas Prize twice in 2008 and 2010. She was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2014. She was the youngest ever member of the Royal Court Young Writer's Programme, tutored by Simon Stephens. Her plays include: Red Ellen (Northern Stage, Nottingham Playhouse & Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, 2022); The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Northern Stage, 2015); Chamber Piece (Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, as part of the Secret Theatre season, 2013); and The Trojan Women (Gate Theatre, 2012). Her Beano-inspired musical, The Trial of Dennis the Menace, was performed in the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre in 2012. She was short-listed for Most Promising New Playwright at the 2013 Off-West-End Awards.