Vicky MacKenzie lives in the East Neuk of Fife and teaches creative writing for the Open College of the Arts and the St Andrews Creative Writing Summer Programme. Her poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies and magazines such as Magma and Gutter and have won several awards including the Ruth Rendell Short Story Competition and the Robert McLellan Poetry Prize. She is working on a novel about the life of John Ruskin, a neglected and even mocked figure in our own time, yet one of the finest prose stylists in English letters. Vicky has an MLitt in Creative Writing and a PhD in English Literature, both from the University of St Andrews. Her thesis explored how contemporary poets respond to scientific ideas in their work, from quantum physics and genetics to freshwater ecology. She also has an MA in Art History and regularly writes poetry reviews.