Chris Ifso is a writer of fiction, songs, digital literature, plays, blogs, articles and poetry. His book  The Thoughts of Betty Spital was published by Yorkshire Arts Circus and Penguin Books; he has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, written for the BBC, taught at the Arvon Foundation and for six years ran an annual digital project with mentored writers on the Jerwood Arvon Scheme. He has an M.A. in Creative Writing & New Media from De Montfort University and is completing a PhD in Digital Writing at Bath Spa University. In 1984 he won the George Orwell Prize for his play We Two Boys; Chris worked for twenty years as a literature development worker, first as Community Arts Worker and Director of the Opening The Book Festival in Sheffield, then running Imagination Services in Birmingham Library Services before becoming Director of The Poetry Society from 1994-2000, then Booktrust (2000-2007). In 2008 he founded if:book UK, working with Bob Stein’s New York based Institute for the Future of the Book. In 2009 his magical musical digital novella In Search of Lost Tim was described by the Independent on Sunday as “a jeu d’esprit and, just possibly, the future of fiction.” In 2012 he was a participant in Tino Sehgal’s These Associations at Tate Turbine Hall. Chris became a founder member of Academy Inegales in 2016 working with a diverse ensemble of fantastic musicians co-ordinated by Peter Wiegold of Brunel University, and he performed as Dryden in Purcell’s King Arthur at Wilton’s Music Hall with Murray Lachlan Young and Notes Inegales.

Chris is in the process of writing What Didn’t Quite, a transmedia novel – find out more at http://www.nearlyology.net. Chris is also currently Chair of Modern Poetry In Translation. 

He now writes and performs with The Ifso Band . 

twitter: @ifbook