John Tanner was born in South Wales, graduated from Swansea University, and worked as a journalist
on regional and national newspapers before becoming a corporate executive with a publishing group. He took advantage of early retirement in 2001 to pursue a radically different course, as a poet and academic. He chose to write his doctoral thesis on Brautigan after coming across Trout Fishing in America in a second-hand book shop in Arizona. “It’s not about how to fish,” the shop assistant warned him. He now teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at Bangor University. He is an elected member of the Welsh Academy of writers and his poetry has appeared in various magazines, in the anthology The Lie of the Land, and in the collected volume of his verse, Pieces, both published by Cinnamon Press. He lives in North Wales.
