JOSEPHINE DICKINSON, author of Scarberry Hill and The Voice, was born in South London in 1957. She studied classics at Oxford and taught music for many years. She has lived in Alston, a small Cumbrian town high in the Pennines, for more than a decade. The summer 2005 issue of the British literary magazine Staple praised the best Alt Generation of British poets (a response to the Guardian s Next Gen contest), and Dickinson was the first choice listed by both judges.