Ben RICE (b. 1972, Tiverton, Devon) is the 2001 recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award. His first book, the novella Poppy and Dingan (2000), was very well received and is published in the US by Knopf, with rights sold in 20 countries around the world. His travels-through Europe, Asia and the Pacific, the Mediterranean-also include a year in Maine as a child, when his father was an exchange professor. At eighteen he taught English as a second language for a half year in the Czech Republic. He holds the M.A. with distinction from the University of East Anglia, his country's most competitive creative writing program. The US State Department provides his participation in the program.