Rita Ann Higgins was born in 1955 in Galway, where she still lives. She has published many books of poetry and prose, including Sunny Side Plucked (Poetry Book Society Recommendation) (1996), An Awful Racket (2001), Throw in the Vowels: New & Selected Poems (2005), Ireland Is Changing Mother (2011) and Tongulish (2016) from Bloodaxe. Her 2026 Bloodaxe retrospective, Jiving with Wasps: New & Selected Poems draws on all of these, plus her collections from Salmon Press. She is also a playwright, and her most recent plays. Her plays include The Plastic Bag (2008), The Empty Frame (2008) and The Colossal Longing of Julie Connors (2014). Her many awards include a Peadar O'Donnell Award in 1989, the Living Poets Society Award in 2021, and several Arts Council bursaries. She is a member of Aosdána.