Morag Joss

Prior to becoming a full-time author, Morag Joss’s professional life had assumed various forms, including time spent as an English tutor, proofreader, clothes designer, university lecturer and singer. She was born in England and moved to Ayrshire on the west coast of Scotland at the age of four. She received an MA in English from the University of St. Andrews and went on to study singing at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

In 1996, Morag’s first short story was runner-up in a competition sponsored by Good Housekeeping magazine. Her first foray into novel writing began with the Sara Selkirk mystery series, the first of which was encouraged by PD James. In subsequent novels she has moved closer to literary fiction and no longer writes ‘whodunnits’ or mysteries. All her work has been published in the USA as well as Britain, and translated into several languages.

Morag Joss’s seventh novel, Among the Missing, is set in Scotland. Published in America in June 2011 to outstanding reviews, it was published in the UK in September 2011 with the title Across the Bridge.

Her first novel, Funeral Music, was shortlisted for the Dilys Award; her fourth novel, Half Broken Things, was winner of the 2003 Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger Award and adapted into a television film in 2007; and her sixth novel, The Night Following, was nominated for the Best Novel category of the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 2009.

In 2008, she was a Heinrich Böll writer-in-residence on Achill Island in County Mayo, Ireland.

Morag currently lives in Hampshire, England.