Rory Waterman was born in Belfast in 1981, and grew up mainly in Lincolnshire. His full-length collections, all published by Carcanet, are: Tonight the Summer’s Over (2013), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for a Seamus Heaney Award; Sarajevo Roses (2017), which was shortlisted for the Ledbury Forte Prize for Second Collections; Sweet Nothings (2020); and, most recently, Come Here to This Gate (2024), described in the Guardian as 'a wise and deeply satisfying book.' He is also a critic for the TLS, PN Review and other publications, and has published several books on modern and contemporary poetry. He co-edits New Walk Editions. Since 2012, he has worked at Nottingham Trent University, where he is Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature. He lives in Nottingham.​​​​