Tessa Ransford was born in India, educated in Scotland and has lived all her adult life in Scotland, apart from eight years working in Pakistan in the 1960s. She was founder of the Scottish Poetry Library, which she directed from 1984–1999, founder/organiser of the School of Poets poetry workshop (1981–1999) and was editor of Lines Review poetry magazine from 1988 until its final issue in 1998. She worked as a freelance poetry adviser and practitioner, and was attached as Royal Literary Fund Fellow to the Centre for Human Ecology in Edinburgh. In 2000 she set up the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award to encourage the publication of poetry pamphlets, and was subsequently President of International PEN's Scottish Centre. She was awarded an O.B.E. for her services to the Scottish Poetry Library in 2000, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Paisley in 2003. Tessa Ransford died on 2 September 2015, in Edinburgh.