About the Author"Since 2004, Dr. Michael Wyndham Thomas has helped develop and spearhead the workshops for the Key West Robert Frost Poetry Festival. His hands-on teaching skills make poetry exciting for even the novice; his depth of knowledge is impressive. Because he has endeared himself to everyone associated with the festival--and to many others who live on this island at the southernmost point in the United States--Dr. Thomas is fondly referred to as the Poet at Large in the Conch Republic Navy." Barbara Bowers, writer and journalist.Many thanks from The Robert Frost Poetry Festival Committee, Key West, Florida. ***Forthcoming in 2013: Pilgrims at the White Horizon: sequel to the Mercury Annual***Michael Wyndham Thomas is originally from Staffordshire, England, and lived in Canada for a number of years. He is now based in Worcestershire. He is an internationally-known poet, fiction-writer, dramatist and musician. His poetry, prose and scripts have appeared in Aereings, English, The English Review, Fire, The Interpreter's House, Iron, Other Poetry, Pennine Platform, Stand, Staple and The Swansea Review (UK), as well as Alive!, From the Horse's Mouth, Grain and Reflections (Canada), Etchings (Australia),The Black Mountain Review and Irish University Review (Ireland) and The Antioch Review, Magazine Six, Modern Haiku, Muscadine Lines and The Secret of Salt (USA). He also reviews for Other Poetry (Durham), Raw Edge (Birmingham) and Poetry Nottingham. Michael's first poetry collection, God's Machynlleth and Other Poems, is available from Flarestack. His latest collection, Port Winston Mulberry, is forthcoming from Littlejohn and Bray in 2010; while his CD, Seventeen Poems (and a Bit of a Song) is now on release from MayB Studios and has sold very well in the UK and the States. His novel, The Mercury Annual, was published in 2009 by Silver Age. His play, FAQ, was performed at the Worcester Festival, 2009, and also the Progress Theatre Drama Festival, Reading, 2009; his play, When?, was staged as part of the West Midlands Script project in Spring, 2010. He was awarded first prize in the 1998 Housman Society competition and has also gained recognition in the Stand Magazine International Short Fiction competition, the Yorkshire Open competition, two Poets Anonymous competitions, the 2006 Poetry London competition and numerous others. Writing as Henderson Bray, he was shortlisted for the 2009 Wasafiri Fiction Prize. In the 2010 Bridport Prize, he was shortlisted in the poetry and fiction sections. Since April, 2004, Michael has been poet-in-residence at the annual Robert Frost Poetry Festival, Key West, Florida. In consequence, he is now Poet-at-Large in the Navy of the Conch Republic of Key West. He undertakes these 'bardic' duties with due solemnity and happy bafflement. Other events outside the UK include a reading at Linnaeus University, Sweden, in March 2010. Closer to home, Michael gives frequent radio interviews about the writing life, including ideas for anyone who would like to venture into it. He runs creative writing workshops, in all genres, for the University of Birmingham; and he is also writer-in-residence at various primary schools in the West Midlands as part of Birmingham Book Festival's Write On! Project. Between 2003 and 2005, he led a highly successful series of poetry sessions at the Ledbury Poetry Festival, where he also appeared in 2009 and 2010. As of 2008, he is a tutor for the Open University's undergraduate Creative Writing courses.Website: www.michaelwthomas.co.uk