Ashley Hickson-Lovence is a novelist, poet, literary critic, and Lecturer of Creative Writing. Wild East was his first multi-award-winning YA verse-novel, and was partly inspired by his time as a secondary school English teacher, his own move from London to Norwich, tutoring a group of asylum seekers at an Arvon retreat, and his love of British hip hop. Ashley has also written three adult novels: The 392, Your Show, which was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards, and About To Fall Apart. His poetry collection Why I Am Not a Bus Driver has been shortlisted for the Jhalak Poetry Prize and includes the poem 'Munster Road', highly commended for Best Single Poem at the Forward Prize. He holds a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia and was nominated for the Black Excellence Award for Outstanding Contribution to Literature in 2023. His second YA verse-novel, Dead Ends, will publish in 2027.