Laura Hird

Laura Hird was born in Edinburgh in 1966. She studied at Middlesex Polytechnic, graduating with a degree in Contemporary Writing. After a varied of careers, from coleslaw packer to Council Tax canvasser, a Scottish Arts Council bursary in 1997 allowed her to writer full time. She was first published in the Rebel, Inc. anthology Children of Albion Rovers in 1997, alongside other leading Scottish authors such as Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner.

The short story collection Nail & Other Stories was published in 1998, and her first novel, Born Free, was published in 1999. The novel, which was shortlisted for the Whitbred First Novel Award, took her back to her childhood home of Gorgie in west Edinburgh. Her latest anthology, Hope and Other Urban Tales, was published in autumn 2006.

She has also published a memoir, called Dear Laura. Laura’s mother, June Hird (a ‘thwarted actress, insatiable reader and self-confessed “constipated romantic”‘) wrote a stream of letters to Laura while she was at University, which Hird has used to explore her relationship with her mother.