Maura Dooley has published several collections of poetry, most recently Life Under Water (Bloodaxe Books 2008) and edited anthologies of verse and essays, amongst them The Honey Gatherers: Love Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2003) and How Novelists Work (Seren Books 2000).

She has worked with new writers all her working life for, amongst others, the Arvon Foundation, Performing Arts Labs, the South Bank Centre, Jim Henson Film and currently for Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has twice been short-listed for the T S Eliot Prize and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

With Elhum Shakerifar, Maura has translated the Iranian poet, Azita Ghahreman for the PTC's Persian Poets' Tour.