Ian McGuire is the author of The Abstainer published in September 2020 by Random House (USA) and Simon & Schuster (UK), The North Water published by in 2016 by Henry Holt (USA) and Simon & Schuster (UK), and Incredible Bodies published in 2007 by Bloomsbury. Ian grew up in East Yorkshire, and studied at the University of Manchester in England and the University of Virginia in the United States. He teaches creative writing and literature at The University of Manchester, where he is the co-founder of the University's Centre for New Writing. He is a winner of the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award and Historical Writers' Association Gold Crown Award.