Ian Watson was born in Belfast but has now spent most of his life in Bremen, Northern Germany, where he worked as a senior lecturer in Creative Writing and British and Irish Literature and Cultural History. He has been publishing poems, articles and literary translations in anthologies and magazines internationally since the 1970s He also done radio feature work in Germany and is the co-author of the documentary Cool to be Celtic (1999) on Irish popular music, co-produced for French and German television. He still teaches literary writing in schools and in adult education. For twenty years he edited newleaf magazine and ran newleaf press, which published writing in English from Germany and abroad. He is a steering committee member of the Virtuelles Literaturhaus Bremen. His recent publications include three German books of poetry and short prose: Kurzpassspiel (Bremen 2012), Spielfelder: eine Fußballmigration (Bremen 2016) and Bremen erlesen (Bremen 2018), as well as two poetry collections: Riverbank City: A Bremen Canvas (Hamburg 2013) and Granny’s Interpreter (Salmon Poetry 2016).
