New Writing Scotland

Alan Bissett’s (Scotland/UK) acclaimed first novel, Boyracers – based on his adolescent experiences growing up in Falkirk, Scotland – was published while he was still a student. He is a former English teacher and has lectured in creative writing at the Universities of Leeds and Glasgow, and is now a full-time writer, playwright, and performer of his own work. Death of a Ladies’ Man, Bissett’s third novel, is a dark, funny and deliciously erotic portrait of male vanity, written with verve and emotional rawness.

Alan Bissett appears at IFOA as part of Writing Scotland.

Margaret Elphinstone (Scotland/UK) is the author of seven previous novels as well as poetry and short stories. She is an Emeritus Professor of Strathclyde University where she was a member of the English Studies Department from 1990 to 2008. Apart from spells of academic work in the US, she has spent her working life in various parts of Scotland including Shetland, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Moray, and has now resettled in Galloway. Elphinstone presents The Gathering Night, a novel set among Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who lived in what is now Scotland some 8,000 years ago.

Margaret Elphinstone appears at IFOA as part of Writing Scotland.

Roland Gulliver (Scotland/UK) is the Programme Manager at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Roland Gulliver appears at IFOA as part of Writing Scotland.

James Meek (Scotland/UK) is a prize-winning journalist for the Guardian, where he was for many years a correspondent in Moscow and Kiev, and more recently in Afghanistan. He is the author of three previous acclaimed novels, The People’s Act of Love, MacFarlane Boils the Sea and Drivetime, and two short story collections. Moving from the mountains of Northern Afghanistan to London and the waterlands of east Virginia, Meek’s We Are Now Beginning Our Descent is an arresting and timely novel about flawed individuals searching for perfect love.

James Meek appears at IFOA as part of Writing Scotland.

Eleanor Thom’s (Scotland/UK) linguistics research, The Gaelic Gasp and its North Atlantic Cousins, was the first of its kind conducted in Britain. She was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship by the Scottish Arts Council and the National Library of Scotland in 2008 and is currently an Honorary Writer in Residence for the French Department at Glasgow University. Thom presents her award-winning debut, The Tin-Kin, a novel based on photos, artifacts and memories of her mother’s travelling family.

Eleanor Thom appears at IFOA as part of Writing Scotland.