Sir Andrew Motion was Poet Laureate from 1999 till 2009, and is Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, London. Jean Sprackland's Tilt won the Costa Poetry award in 2008. She is a Reader in Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. Julie Blake is the Director of the national poetry recitation competition Poetry By Heart which she co-founded with Sir Andrew Motion in 2012. Mike Dixon is an educational consultant specializing in English in the classroom.