Alan Riddell was educated in Scotland (he received his MA from the University of Edinburgh) and lived in Greece, Spain, France and Australia. During his time in Australia he worked as a journalist for the Age, Daily Telegraph and Sydney Morning Herald (where he was editor of the education supplement from 1969 to 1970). Riddell's poetry has appeared in numerous journals throughout the world, including Encounter, Botteghe Oscure, Poetry Quarterly, Poor. Old. Tired. Horse., Time and Tide, Points, Lines, The Bell, Meanjin, Southerly and Spectator. His work has also been included in the PEN anthology, New Poems 1962, Australian Signpost, Australian Poetry 1955-1956, Young Commonwealth Poets '65 and Scottish Poetry 1. Riddell founded the Scottish poetry review Lines, which he edited from 1952 to 1955, and again between 1962 and 1967. Except for later in his career, Riddell's works contain 'concrete' poems, which were his favoured mode of poetic expression. As a visual artist, he transferred the technique of typewriter art to screenprints and other artistic media.
