THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

Anne Donovan grew up in Coatbridge, a town in North Lanarkshire. She is best known for her first novel, the highly successful Buddha Da.

After university, Donovan became an English teacher, a post that she has only recently given up, in order to concentrate full-time on her writing. Although always a keen writer, she grew in confidence after attending a writer’s retreat in 1995. She then went on to win the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday Short Story Award in 1997.

Donovan has had prize-winning short stories published in various anthologies and broadcast on BBC Radio, she has also written for the stage and radio. Her first published work, Hieroglyphics and Other Stories – a collection of short stories – was published by Canongate in 2001.

Buddha Da was published in 2003 by Canongate and received a great deal of attention: it was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Scottish Book of the Yaer Award and nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The book received a Scottish Arts Council Award and, in 2004, won Le Prince Maurice Award in Mauritius.

Buddha Da is the story of an ordinary working man from Glasgow, who becomes involved with Buddhist teachings as he approaches his fortieth birthday. The idea springs from the author’s own involvement in learning meditation at the Glasgow Buddhist centre in Sauchiehall Street.

Anne Donovan has started work on the screenplay for Buddha Da since Wasted Talent optioned it, with the hope of it being turned into a film. Her second novel Being Emily was published in 2008.

Angus Peter Campbell, or Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul in Gaelic, was born near South Boisdale on the Hebridean island of South Uist. He attended Gearradh na Monadh school before moving to Oban High School, where he was taught English by Iain Crichton Smith. While studying History and Politics at the University of Edinburgh, Campbell met and studied under another great Scottish writer, Sorley MacLean. With such encouragement, it is little wonder that he became a full-time writer of both novels and poetry in English and Gaelic.

He returned to South Uist after university, before starting work as a journalist for the West Highland Free Press, and then both BBC and Grampian TV. He continues to write and present for television and radio. He also appears in the Gaelic feature film Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle, in a role for which he was nominated for a Scottish BAFTA award.

Angus Peter Campbell has written three Gaelic novels for children, for the Gaelic education service Stòrlann; two English poetry collections, three Gaelic adult novels and Invisible Islands, his first English-language novel. His most recent novel, An Tilleadh Dhachaigh, was published in 2009.

Of writing in Gaelic, he has said in the West Highland Free Press: “I still run my written Gaelic past various scholars,” he says. “It’s hellish that your life is spent reclaiming this thing that should have been a birthright.”

Angus Peter Campbell now lives on Skye with his wife and six children.

Although born in Aberdeen, historian Angus Konstam was raised in Orkney. He started a naval scholarship in 1978, studying at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, and history at Aberdeen University. In 1983 he left the navy to study underwater archaeology at St Andrews University, combining his interests in both history and diving. Later jobs included Curator at the Tower of London, and a maritime museum in Key West, Florida.

Since 1999 he has been a full-time writer, and moved back to the UK in 2001 to pursue this career. He is the author of over 50 books; initially writing about Peter the Great for Osprey Military History. Preparing an exhibition on pirates for the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Florida laid the foundations for his first major book, Pirates! : Pirates and Piracy of the Americas (1997), and later books on pirating for Osprey. The History of Pirates, first published in New York in 1999, has sold over 65,000 copies, and he is has written over 30 books for Osprey.

In 2003 Angus Konstam settled in Edinburgh. Many of his books are published by American companies, and not all are available in the UK. He is secretary of the Society of Authors in Scotland, and his most recent book is There Was A Soldier. A more extensive biography can be found on Angus Konstam’s website.

Andy Hall graduated from Aberdeen University with a Bachelor of Education degree in 1977, his study of Scottish literature, particularly that of Lewis Grassic Gibbon, had a powerful influence on him and shaped his affection for the Scottish landscape, encouraging him to convey its essential elements through the medium of photography.

Andy divides his time between full-time primary school teaching, lecturing and photography.

Andrew Wolffe was born and raised in Gatehouse of Fleet, south west Scotland. A graduate of Edinburgh College of Art, Andrew is a graphic designer with his own busy consultancy based in rural Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. He wrote his first Rory Story for his baby son; since then, the series has grown to seven stories featuring the wild-haired Rory and his dog, Scruff McDuff.

Andrew is a Read Together! Reading Champion, and regularly gives readings of his Rory Story books to schools around Scotland.

Andrew O’Hagan was born in Glasgow but raised in the Scottish New Town of Irvine. He studied English at the University of Strathclyde. His first book, The Missing is a genre-crossing mix of autobiography, social history, and mystery, investigating how people can disappear without a trace. His first novel, Our Fathers, followed in 1999, and was shortlisted for both the Booker and Whitbread awards.

O’Hagan is now a contributing editor for the London Review of Books, and Granta Magazine. He also writes for various national newspapers and is a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. His most recent novels include Be Near Me and The Life And Opinions Of Maf The Dog, And Of His Friend Marilyn Monroe.

Journalist Andrew Nicoll has lived in Broughty Ferry, near Dundee, for most of his life. After a brief job as a lumberjack, he has been a journalist for a number of daily newspapers and is now a Scottish Political Reporter for The Sun. He wrote his début novel, the love story The Good Mayor, while commuting between home and Holyrood in Edinburgh.

Nicoll still lives in Broughty Ferry with his wife and three children.

Andrew Murray Scott was born in Aberdeen in 1955. He graduated from Dundee University with a first class honours degree in English & Modern History. A former freelance journalist, he taught media courses at Dundee College, where he was also an evening class tutor in creative writing. In 2007 he was invited to take up a new post as fulltime media officer for three of Scotland’s brightest political talents. He retired from media work in 2016 to return to fulltime writing.

The author of ten non-fiction books, he was the first winner of the Dundee International Book Prize in 1999 and his winning novel, Tumulus, was subsequently published by Polygon. A second novel, Estuary Blue was published by Polygon in 2001. A further three novels have subsequently appeared, The Mushroom Club (2007) The Big J (2008) and In A Dead Man’s Jacket which is presently available for Kindle / Kobo e-readers and will shortly appear in paperback.

Short stories, poems, essays and a large body of published journalism appeared in a wide variety of magazines and newspapers since the 1970s and these include the story ‘Serving the Regent’ in Damage Land: New Scottish Gothic Fiction (Polygon, 2001) and ‘Postcard From Dundee’ in A Sense of Place (Waverley Books, 2005). His non-fiction titles include biographical work on Alexander Trocchi (1990, reprinted by Kennedy & Boyd in 2012) and first Jacobite leader, John Graham of Claverhouse, (1989, reprinted by Birlinn, 2000) whose letters he has also collected for the Scottish History Society (Miscellany X1, 1990).

He is also known as the author of a variety of local history titles about Dundee including a bestselling post-war history, Modern Dundee, (Breedon Books, 2002, 2006, Derby Books 2012) a popular and much reprinted social history, Discovering Dundee (Thins 1989, Mercat Press, 1992, 1996, Birlinn, 2010) and a two-volume cultural study; The Literary Lives of Dundee, (Abertay Historical Society, 2002, 2003) not to mention a quirky collection of evocative 20^th century photographs, The Week Book of Dundee, (Black & White, 2003).

Andrew Murray Scott’s main output and main drive as a writer is as a fiction writer. His novels originate from a strong identification with sense of place, landscape and a response to nature and often explore the changing nature of Scottish identity. He believes that now is the best time to be a Scottish writer, with exciting and historic events in the making and he remains an enthusiast and exponent of creative writing and finding better ways of telling stories to ourselves.

He lives in Broughty Ferry near Dundee.

Andrew J Keir was born in Glasgow and brought up in Paisley. After University, he spent two years as an accountant in Inverness, before becoming a business economics lecturer, initially at University College Warrington and later with the Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates. His first novel, Bloody Flies, was started while studying for an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Lancaster.

Most of Keir’s early writing is set in the UAE and he was the first writer to be shortlisted twice for the Kitab/M Magazine short story prize, the largest prize in the Middle East for short stories in the English language (The Sirens’ Song – 2009 and Moving Messages – 2010).

Andrew J Keir is currently working on a historical novel about the life of Cinaed mac Alpin (Arguably the first King of Scotland) and studying for a PhD in Creative Writing with Edinburgh Napier University. A picture book for children, Colin Colour Fingers, is also in the pipeline.

He divides his time between his homes in Abu Dhabi and Largs, where he lives with his family.

Andrew Greig was born in Bannockburn, although raised in the Fife town of Anstruther. Equally at home with poetry – his first book was the poetry collection White Boats – and literary fiction – In Another Light won the Saltire Society prize in 2004. He has also had success with mountaineering titles, like Summit Fever and the mountain poetry collections Men on Ice and Surviving Passages, and, in 1996, The Return of John McNab was short listed for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Award.

Greig is a former Glasgow University Writing Fellow, and an SAC Scottish/Canadian Exchange Fellow. He studied Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and held a number of part-time jobs before turning to writing.

Greig now lives in Orkney and Edinburgh, and is married to author Lesley Glaister.

Although he was born in in Singapore in 1938, writer Allan Massie was educated and raised in Aberdeenshire. After attending Glenalmond College in Highland Perthshire he read history at Trinity College, Cambridge. As a novelist, Massie has written around 20 novels, including a range of biographical novels of leading historical figures. He has also written a number of non-fiction on rugby, history, and literary criticism.

Has has been nominated for a Saltire Award several times, and won in 1986 for his novel A Question of Loyalties. He has been a judge for the Booker Prize. As a journalist, Massie has written for The Scotsman, The Sunday Times and the Scottish Daily Mail, and magazines such as The Spectator. He also writes on sporting matters, especially rugby and cricket.

Allan Massie is married and now lives in Selkirk. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Strathclyde in 2008. His most recent non-fiction book is The Royal Stuarts.

A writer of tough, fast, American-style pulp crime fiction, Allan Guthrie’s first novel, Two-Way Split, was first published by American imprint PointBlank press – but it wasn’t long before it was imported into Scotland. Despite having an American feel, his novels and short stories are set in Scotland: Two-Way Split in Edinburgh, Kiss Her Goodbye in Edinburgh and Orkney.

Two-Way Split was shortlisted for a CWA Debut Dagger, and nominated for a Saltire Society First Novel award. Having recently quit his bookselling job, Guthrie is now a full-time writer with a three-book deal with Edinburgh publishers, Polygon. He is also a literary agent and commissioning editor for PointBlank Press.

Guthrie edits an online crime-writing magazine, Noir Originals, and his most recent novel is Slammer.

In 1993, A.L. Kennedy featured on a Granta list of Best Young British Novelists (along with such luminaries as Kazuo Ishiguro, Iain Banks, Hanif Kureishi, Ben Okri, and Alan Hollinghurst, to name but a few) and did not subsequently disappoint: her work has been consistently original, exciting and ground breaking.

Born Alison Louise Kennedy in Dundee in 1965, she attended school in Dundee before taking a degree in Theatre Studies and Drama at Warwick University. After a series of jobs, she began her writing career with the short story collection, Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains, published by Polygon in 1991. That was followed up by a succession of highly-acclaimed novels and short story collections many of which are known for their dark tone and blending of realism and fantasy. She contributes columns and reviews to European newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio.

Alistair Moffat was born (in 1950) and raised in Kelso, in the Scottish Borders. He went to university in St Andrews, Edinburgh and London, and played rugby while he was in the Borders. He took over the running of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976, a move that led to the publication of his first book, Edinburgh Fringe in 1978.

After he had finished as Fringe administrator he moved into the world of television, and quickly progressed through the ranks to become director of programmes at Scottish Television. After a period as Chairman of this same company, he moved back down to the Borders, a move that has inspired many books such as Kelsae: A History of Kelso From Earliest Times, a definitive look at the author’s home town.

Other books inspired by the region he grew up in are The Borders: A History of the Borders From Earliest Times and title The Reivers: The Story of the Border Reivers. This accompanied a six-part television series broadcast on ITV Border, and presented by Alistair Moffat himself. He is also credited with founding the Borders Book Festival in 2004. This takes place annually in Melrose, and is growing in popularity by the year.

Glasgow-born Alistair MacLean was the hugely successful author of adventure thrillers and spy books, many of which have been filmed. A native Gaelic speaker, MacLean was raised in Daviot in the Highlands before attending high school in Glasgow. In 1941 he joined the Royal Navy, becoming a torpedo operator in the Home, North Sea and Mediterranean theatres during WWII. He also served in the far east.

After the war, MacLean studied English at Glasgow University and became a school teacher after graduating in 1953. His first novel, HMS Ulysses, was published in 1955. A lone cruiser battles German U-boats, a mutinous crew and the harsh North Sea weather in a doomed attempt to protect a convoy – a novel which set the template for many of his later novels. His most famous novel is The Guns of Navarone, the 1961 film of the novel won several Golden Globe awards and an Oscar for Best Special Effects. Force 10 from Navarone, written in 1968, was a sequel to the film and not the book.

MacLean also wrote two novels under the pseudonym Ian Stuart, The Dark Crusader and The Satan Bug. When Eight Bells Toll was the only novel set in Scotland.

Alistair MacLean never considered himself a novelist, and appeared not to enjoy writing. He once told the New York Post “I’m not a novelist, I’m a storyteller. There’s no art in what I do, no mystique”. He has also said “I’m not a born writer, and I don’t enjoy writing. I wrote each book in thirty-five days flat – just to get the darned thing finished.” Despite his reticence, he sold 30 million novels.

HarperCollins are republishing many of his novels in collected form.

Alistair Findlay was born in Winchburgh, in West Lothian, in 1949. The son of a fourth-generation shale miner, he started out as a part-time footballer (having signed for Hibernian FC in 1965 until 1968) before becoming a writer.

In 1970 he trained as a social worker at Moray House College, Edinburgh, and became a manager within the profession. During the 1980s, Findlay became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, citing Labour’s commitment to supporting Margaret Thatcher’s war in the Falkland Islands.

During his lifetime he has also achieved degrees in Social and Cultural History and Literature and Poetry from a number of institutions: Bradford, the OU, Edinburgh, and Stirling. In August 2007, the Scottish Arts Council awarded him a Writer’s Bursary. With this Bursary he edited Lenin’s Gramophone, a critical anthology on the poetry of Scottish Marxism, as well as writing Dancing With Big Eunice, a third collection of poems on social workers.

Findlay has also produced a string of football-related poetry works, including Sex, Death and Football, The Love Songs of John Knox, and editing 100 Favourite Scottish Football Poems (all published by Luath Press).

Ali Smith was born in Inverness, and studied at Aberdeen and Cambridge Universities, although she never completed her PhD. Smith tried lecturing at Strathclyde University, but found academic life difficult, and turned to writing her own works rather than teach the work of others. Her novels, Like, Hotel World and The Accidental share the tightness of language and purpose necessary for her short stories, the first of which, Free Love and Other Stories, was published in 1995. Smith has been nominated twice for the Booker Prize (for Hotel World and The Accidental), and has been nominated for the Orange Prize and the Saltire Society prize. The Accidental won the 2005 Whitbread Novel of the Year award. In 2007 she wrote a version of Ovid’s Metamorphosis for Canongate’s Myths series called Girl Meets Boy.

“one of our greatest imaginative writers” The Scotsman

Ali Smith now lives in Cambridge and writes reviews for several national newspapers.

Aline Templeton grew up in the East Neuk of Fife and was educated at St Leonards School, St Andrews and Cambridge University. She has worked in education and broadcasting and has written numerous stories and articles for national newspapers and magazines. Templeton was a bench Justice of the Peace for ten years and is a former Chair of the Society of Authors in Scotland, now living in Edinburgh. She is married with a grown up family.

She has written nine crime novels, published by Hodder & Stoughton in Britain, and has also been published in the United States and several European countries. After writing seven stand-alone books, she started a series set in Galloway and featuring DI Marjory Fleming, the first of which – Cold In The Earth – was an Ottakar’s Crime Novel of the Month and an Independent Best Summer Read. The second, The Darkness and the Deep, was published in July 2006, and there are now six books in the DI Fleming series.

Author Alice Thompson was born in Edinburgh, and studied English at Oxford University. Her first artistic success came as keyboardist for rock band The Woodentops, but she left the band in 1987 to concentrate on her writing. Her first novella, Killing Time, was published in 1990, and with her first novel Justine she she shared the James Tait Black Memorial Prize with Graham Swift.

While working as a Writer in Residence in Shetland, she was inspired to write Pharos. Her 1998 novel Pandora’s Box won an SAC Creative Writing award, and Thompson’s most recent novel Burnt Island was published in 2013. Alice is currently a lecturer on the MSc in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh.

Alex Gray was born and raised in Glasgow. After brief jobs as a folk singer and a visiting officer for the DSS, she taught English for ten years. She retired from teaching in 1992 due to illness, and became a full-time novelist. Her first novel, Never Somewhere Else, introduced her character of DCI Lorimer and was published in 2003. She has since written three other crime novels, all set in Glasgow.

Gray has won the Scottish Association of Writers Constable and Pitlochry trophies for her novels.

She is a member of Femmes Fatales, alongside fellow crime writers Alanna Knight and Lin Anderson.