Paula Median was born in Dublin's inner city in 1955 and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and at Eastern Washington University. She was brought up in a working-class environment, has been involved in community programmes and has used class and social problems as major themes for her poetry. She has taught creative writing in schools, universities and prisons, has been Writer Fellow of the English Department at Trinity and has received a number of Arts Council bursaries.

Paula Meehan is the author of four volumes of poetry: Return and No Blame (1984), Reading the Sky (1985), both by Beaver Row Press, and The Man who was Marked by Winter (1991) and Pillow Talk (1994), both by Gallery Press. Although known mainly as a poet, Meehan was also involved in street theatre groups during her years at Trinity and her play Cell was performed in September 1999 at the City Arts Centre, Dublin. She has made of Dublin a pervasive setting for her work and much of her poetry focuses on the possibility of cultural decolonisation in Ireland, the victimisation of individuals within families and gender asymmetries in contemporary Irish society. Paula Meehan is one of Ireland's most energetic poetic voices and through her work she has contributed to the inscription of gender, class, race and female sexuality in new definitions of" Irishness". She lives in County Dublin and is currently working on a new collection of poetry that is due to appear in the year 2000. An interview conducted by Inés Praga focusing on related issues appeared in The European English Messenger (1997).