Philip Gross - Biography

Biography

Philip Gross was born in 1952 in Britain, at Delabole, in north Cornwall, near the sea. He was the only child of Juhan Gross, an Estonian wartime refugee, and the daughter of the local village school-master. He grew up and was educated in Plymouth. In junior school he began writing stories, and when in his teens he began writing poetry. He went on to study at Sussex University, where he took his B.A. in English. He worked for a correspondence college and in several libraries (he has a diploma in librarianship).

In the 1980s he married his first wife, Helen. He and she had a son and a daughter. While they were living in Bristol he had his first books published. He began travelling around schools in Britain as a workshop leader. Later he joined Bath Spa University to teach Creative Studies. In 2000 he married his second wife, Zelie. In 2004 he was appointed Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Glamorgan, a position he still holds. In 2007 he received his D. Litt. from the university. He lives at Penarth, near the sea. He is a Quaker Christian.

He won the T.S. Eliot Prize for his collection of poems, The Water Table (2009), a Gregory Award (1981) and the National Poetry Competition (1982).