Billy Letford comes from Stirlingshire and worked in various jobs and in his family’s roofing business in his twenties. He has an MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. He received a New Writer’s Award from the Scottish Book Trust in 2008, and an Edwin Morgan Travel Bursary, which enabled him to go to Northern Italy where he helped in the restoration of a medieval village. He has taken part in translation projects through Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine, and travelled to India with the Commonwealth Poets United project in 2014. In 2014 a chapbook of his poetry, Potom Koža Toho Druhého, was published by Vertigo in Slovakian. His work has appeared on radio and television, and he has performed at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and at many other events and venues. A Creative Scotland Artists’ Bursary allowed him to spend six months travelling through India.
Carcanet published his debut collection Bevel in 2012, and his second, Dirt, in 2016.