Tim Turnbull was born in 1960 in North Yorkshire. He worked in the forestry industry for many years and started writing poetry in the early nineties. He studied at Middlesex and Sheffield Hallam Universities while becoming a regular on the London performance scene.

He has been published in many magazines and been a regular participant in Slam competitions, competing all over Britain and in the USA. In 2002 he won the inaugural Edinburgh Book Festival Slam. In 2004 he received a Scottish Arts Council Bursary and was appointed Writer in Residence at HMYOI Werrington, and more recently at Saughton prison, Edinburgh.

What Was That? was published by Donut Press in 2004, followed by Stranded in Sub-Atomica (Donut Press, 2005) which was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection in the 2006 Forward Prize. Caligula on Ice and other poems was published in 2009.