Paul McDonald taught at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, where he ran the Creative Writing Programme. He took early retirement in 2019 to write full time. He is the author of over twenty books, which cover fiction, poetry, and scholarship. His books include the novels Surviving Sting (2001), Kiss Me Softly Amy Turtle (2004), and Do I Love You? (2008); poetry collections, The Right Suggestion (1999), Catch a Falling Tortoise (2007), and An Artist Goes Bananas (2012), and a recent collection of flash fiction, Midnight Laughter (2019). His scholarly work ranges across a variety of disciplines, including American literature, humour, and narratology. His most recent academic books are: Enigmas of Confinement: A History and Poetics of Flash Fiction (2018), Lydia Davis: A Study (2019), and Allen Ginsberg: Cosmopolitan Comic (2020). His creative work has won or been shortlisted for a number of prizes including the Ottakars/Faber and Faber Poetry Competition, The Bedford Prize, The Bridport Prize, The John Clare Poetry Prize, the Sentinel Poetry Prize, the Sentinal Short Story Prize, and Retreat West Flash Fiction Prize, and the Pushcart Prize (nomination).