Andrew Motion was appointed the British Poet Laureate in May 1999. His poetry and prose have received numerous awards, including the Arvon/Observer Prize, the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize. In 1994 his biography of Philip Larkin was awarded the Whitbread Prize for Biography and short-listed for the NCR award. He lives in London where he is Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.