Ransford, Tessa (1960:- poet and poetry advisor)

Report by Tessa Ransford on action for promotion of poetry in the European Community, 1983, concentrating on review of current state of poetry in Scotland.

Tessa Ransford was born in India, educated in Scotland and has lived all her adult life in Scotland apart from eight years working in Pakistan in the 1960s . She was founder and former director of the Scottish Poetry Library in 1984 and the School of Poets workshop and was for ten years editor of Lines Review poetry magazine. She is now a freelance poetry practitioner and adviser, and undertakes many poetry workshops. Her work has been published in many anthologies, as well as in her own books.

Tessa founded the School of Poets in 1981, and has campaigned for poetry pamphlets since 2000. She is currently President of International PEN, Scottish Centre, the international organisation campaigning for oppressed writers across the world. She is also organiser of the Centre for Human Ecology short course Creative Conviction: creative writing courses for activists. Tessa is Project Fellow 2003-2004 with the Royal Literary Fund (working currently at the Centre for Human Ecology in Edinburgh) and has set up the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award to encourage the publishing of poetry in pamphlets.