David H W Grubb was born in 1941, and passed away in 2024 after a long illness. His poetry collections included The Memory of Rooms, Selected Poems (Stride 2001), The Elephant in the Room (Driftwood 2004), Out of the Marvellous (Oleander 2006), It Comes with a Bit of Song (Salt, 2007). He also published three novels and an autobiography, and was editor of Sounding Heaven and Earth (Canterbury Press 2004). He had been tutor in Creative Writing at the University of Reading, the River and Rowing Museum, Henley on Thames, and Norden Farm Arts Centre. He also ran a mentoring scheme for individual writers. Much of his writing was influenced by working in places of extreme poverty and civil conflict. His novella, Fire Child , was published by Leaf. His first collection of short stories, Hullabaloo and Secret Pianos appeared in 2011.

David Grubb's writing was praised by John Fowles, D.M. Thomas, Ronald Blythe, Selima Hill, Adrian Mitchell, Peter Redgrove, John Silkin and John Burnside. Much of his work was influenced by rural landscapes and traditions in England and conflict zones such as Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo, where he worked delivering humanitarian aid. In all of his writing there is a tension between traditions, fables and spiritual faith and the terrors of failed states, extreme poverty and the voices of suppression and domination.