THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

Alan Parks has worked in the music industry for over twenty years. His debut novel Bloody January was shortlisted for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.

He won the McIlvanney Prize in 2022 for the fifth entry in the Harry McCoy series, May God Forgive.

He lives and works in Glasgow.

Author photograph by Euan Robertson

Sue Lawrence is one of the UK’s leading cookery writers. After winning BBC’s MasterChef in 1991, she became a food writer and journalist, regularly contributing to Scotland on Sunday, the Sunday Times and other leading magazines. Raised in Dundee, she now lives in Edinburgh. She has won two Guild of Food Writers Awards.

She also writes historical novels, including Down to the Sea, The Green Lady and The Unreliable Death of Lady Grange.

Graeme Armstrong is a Times bestselling, multi-award-winning author from Airdrie. His teenage years were spent within Scotland’s ‘young team’ gang culture. After studying English as an undergraduate at the University of Stirling, he completed a Master’s in Creative Writing and is currently a PhD doctoral researcher at the University of Strathclyde.

His debut novel, THE YOUNG TEAM, was published by Picador in 2020. He wrote and presented factual documentaries on Scottish rave culture, BAFTA and RTS Scotland nominated SCOTLAND THE RAVE (BBC, 2022), and a series on the evolution of Scottish gang culture, STREET GANGS (BBC, 2023) available now on iPlayer. He is an ambassador for The Hope Collective, Damilola Taylor’s legacy charity and an honorary lecturer at New College Lanarkshire. In 2023, he was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists, a once-in-a-decade literary honour.

Across Scotland and beyond, Graeme runs anti-violence outreach events in the community with young people and in the prison estate, using his past to fight for positive change.

Awards Graeme has won or been shortlisted for include:

Winner Somerset Maugham Award 2021.

Winner Betty Trask Award 2021.

Scots Book o the Year 2021.

Shortlisted Saltire First Book Award 2021.

BAFTA Scotland Single Doc Nominee 2022.

RTS Scotland Specialist Factual Nominee 2022.

Broadcaster and journalist Sally Magnusson has written 10 books, most famously, her Sunday Times bestseller, Where Memories Go (2014) about her mother’s dementia. Half-Icelandic, half Scottish, Sally has inherited a rich storytelling tradition. Her debut novel, The Sealwoman’s Gift, was a Radio 2 Book Club and Zoe Ball Book Club selection, and was shortlisted for several prizes, including the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year, the Paul Torday Memorial Prize, the McKitterick Prize, the Waverton Good Read Award and the HWA Debut Fiction Crown. The Ninth Child, her second novel, was published in spring 2020, and was followed by Music in the Dark in 2023.

Born in Sheffield, Ajay Close worked as a newspaper journalist, winning several awards, before becoming a full-time author and playwright. Her first novel, Official and Doubtful, was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her fourth, A Petrol Scented Spring, was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Her play, The Keekin Gless, was staged at Perth Theatre. The Sma Room Seance toured east Scotland and was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Her seventh novel, What Doesn’t Kill Us, was published by Saraband in February 2024 and won the Saltire Literary Award for Best Fiction.

Shola von Reinhold is a Scottish socialite and writer. Shola has been published in the Cambridge Literary Review, The Stockholm Review, was Cove Park’s Scottish Emerging Writer 2018 and recently won a Dewar Award for Literature. Shola is a recent graduate from the Creative Writing MLitt at Glasgow which was completed through the Jessica Yorke Writing Scholarship and has previously studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. Shola has also written for publications including i-D, AnOther Magazine.

Her debut novel, LOTE won the Republic of Consciousness Prize and the James Tait Memorial Prize.

Kirstin Innes is a writer based in the West of Scotland. Her latest novel, Scabby Queen, published by 4th Estate, was nominated for the Gordon Burn Prize and Scottish Novel of the Year, and is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures.

Her debut, Fishnet, won The Guardian’s Not The Booker prize in 2015 and is published by Black & White in the UK and Scout Press in the US and Canada, and is being adapted for television by STV.

Her first non-fiction book, Brickwork: A Biography of The Arches, an oral history of the legendary Glasgow venue co-authored with David Bratchpiece, was published in 2021 and shortlisted for UK Theatre Book of the Year.

Kirstin is a regular columnist for The Press and Journal, and often writes for radio, including a number of short stories and the script for the BBC Radio 4 documentary Daft Punk Is Staying At My House, My House.

Photograph by Becky Duncan.

James McGonigal is a poet was a lecturer in English at the University of Glasgow. He was, for many years, a close friend and confidant of the poet, Edwin Morgan and wrote an acclaimed biography of the poet, Beyond the Last Dragon, in 2010.

McGonigal also co-edited Morgan’s letters: The Midnight Letterbox: selected correspondence 1950-2010 was published by Carcanet Press in 2015, followed by Edwin Morgan: In Touch With Language: A New Prose Collection 1950-2005 (Association for Scottish Literary Studies, Glasgow, 2020)

Roseanne Watt is a writer, filmmaker and musician from Shetland. Her dual-language debut collection, Moder Dy, was published by Polygon in May 2019, after receiving the prestigious Edwin Morgan Poetry Award for Scottish poets under 30. Moder Dy subsequently received both an Eric Gregory and Somerset Maugham Award in 2020, and was named joint-winner of the Highland Book Prize 2019.

In 2019, Roseanne completed a funded doctorate from the University of Stirling in the disciplines of creative writing and filmmaking. Her research project, ‘Aa My Mindin: moving through loss in the poetic literary tradition of Shetland’ received AHRC funding, as part of the Scottish Graduate School for the Arts and Humanities. She also holds an MLitt in Creative Writing and a BA Hons in English and Film Studies, also from the University of Stirling.

Roseanne is currently poetry editor for the online literary journal The Island Review. She also performs in the bands Lukkie Minnie and Wulver, where she plays fiddle, vocals and (occasionally) guitar.

Martin MacInnes was born in Inverness in 1983. He has an MA from the University of York, has read at international science and literature festivals, and is the winner of a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award and the 2014 Manchester Fiction Prize. He lives in Edinburgh.

His novels including Infinite Ground (2016), which won the Somerset Maugham Award, and In Ascension (2023), which was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and won Blackwell’s Book of the Year, the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year and the Arthur C Clarke award. His work often delves into themes of the human condition in the 21st century, weaving narratives that reflect on the tensions between digital advancement and ecological devastation.

Akemi Dawn Bowman is the author of William C. Morris Award Finalist Starfish, Summer Bird Blue, and Harley in the Sky. Her sci-fi series, The Infinity Courts, was published in 2021, followed by her middle-grade debut, Generation Misfits. A proud Ravenclaw and Star Wars enthusiast, she has a BA in social sciences from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She currently lives in Scotland with her husband and two children.

Patrick Baker has worked in the publishing industry for many years and is currently writer for an investment management company. He is a keen outdoor enthusiast and has walked and climbed throughout Scotland and Europe. He is the author of The Cairngorms: A Secret History and Remembered Places: Exploring Scotland’s Wild Histories.

Born in the city of Coventry and now living near Glasgow, CD Boyland’s poems have been accepted or published by magazines and anthologies such as: 404Ink, Gutter, The North, The Poets’ Republic and New Writing Scotland. An innovative and exciting new voice in Scottish poetry, described as “dream-like, smoky and contemplative” in the Scotsman, he has performed as part of Stanza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival and at venues such as King Tuts Wah-Wah Hut and the Tron Theatre. In January 2021, he will make his first appearance at the Scottish National Slam Championship finals. ‘User Stories’ is his first pamphlet.

Claire MacLeary lived for many years in Aberdeen and St Andrews, but describes herself as “a feisty Glaswegian with a full life to draw on”. Following a career in business, she gained an MLitt with Distinction from the University of Dundee and her short stories have been published in various magazines and anthologies. She has appeared at Granite Noir, Noir at the Bar and other literary events.

Claire’s crime series, Harcus & Laird, has been recieved with wide acclaim. Her debut novel and the first in the series, Cross Purpose, was longlisted for the prestigious McIlvanney Prize, Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award 2017. Burnout was longlisted for the Hearst Big Book Award 2018. Runaway, her third novel, was published in 2019. Payback is Claire’s fourth novel and continues the Harcus & Laird series.

Lesley Glaister is a fiction writer, poet, playwright and teacher of writing. She has published fourteen adult novels, the first of a YA trilogy and numerous short stories. She received both a Somerset Maugham and a Betty Trask award for Honour Thy Father (1990), and has won or been listed for several literary prizes for her other work. She has three adult sons and lives in Edinburgh (with frequent sojourns to Orkney) with husband Andrew Greig. She teaches creative writing at the University of St Andrews and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Her latest novel, Blasted Things, was published in 2020.

Archie Macpherson was born and raised in Shettleston in the east-end of Glasgow. He was headteacher of Swinton School, Lanarkshire, before he began his broadcasting career at the BBC in 1969. It was here that he became the principal commentator and presenter on Sportscene. He has since worked with STV, Eurosport, Talksport, Radio Clyde and Setanta. He has commentated on various key sporting events including several FIFA World Cups. In 2005 he received a Scottish BAFTA for special contribution to Scottish broadcasting and was inducted into Scottish football’s Hall of Fame in 2017.

His latest book, Touching the Heights, was published in 2023.

Sylvia was awarded a doctorate in creative writing from University of Glasgow in 2018 and is a former recipient of a Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award.

Her debut YA thriller, Sea Change, published by Stirling Publishing 2019, was winner of the Pitlochry Quaich and was shortlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award. Sylvia enjoys living by the sea in the West Highlands of Scotland where she sometimes teaches.

Gordon Brown served as Prime Minister of Britain from 2007 to 2010, during which time he is widely credited with having prevented a second Great Depression in the wake of the financial crash. Previously, he was Britain’s longest-serving Chancellor from 1997 to 2007, masterminding many of Labour’s proudest achievements including the Minimum Wage, debt cancellation for the world’s poorest nations and major reform of Britain’s monetary and fiscal policy. Since leaving office, he has dedicated himself to charitable work and is now United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Infrastructure Investors Summit and a Distinguished Global Leader in Residence at New York University. He lives with his wife, Sarah, and two sons, John and Fraser, in Fife, Scotland. He is the author of several books including Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalisation, My Scotland, Our Britain and My Life, Our Times and most recently, Seven Ways to Change the World. All Gordon Brown’s proceeds from his autobiography My Life, Our Times go to the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory and Theirworld children’s charity.

Pamela Butchart is a teacher and the writer of many award-winning books, including The Spy Who Loved School Dinners and My Head Teacher is a Vampire Rat. She is also author of of the bestselling picture books Never Tickle a Tiger, Yikes, Stinkysaurus! and the hugely successful Baby Aliens series. She lives in Dundee with her son and two cats.

Pamela gets her inspiration from her own childhood which was filled with broken metal detectors, mud pies, haunted primary schools, dinosaurs and exploding balloons filled with rice.
Pamela loves cats, Kinder eggs, funny babies, small dogs, tulips, cheese, dinosaurs and her pug pyjamas bottoms.
When Pamela grows up she’d like to open a luxury hotel for stray cats. She thinks she’d call it ‘Meowington Palace.’

Pamela was a World Book Day author for 2018, the winner of The Children’s Book Award 2016 and the Blue Peter Best Book Award 2015. She was shortlisted for The Laugh Out Loud Book Awards 2018 for There’s a Werewolf in My Tent. Her first book came out in 2014 and since then she has had more than twenty books published. Pamela is also the author of two brand new stories for Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven series, The Mystery of the Skull and The Mystery of the Theatre Ghost.

Pamela is also the author of several picture books: Never Tickle the Tiger is illustrated by Marc Boutavant was shortlisted for The Scottish Children’s Book Awards 2016. Marc Boutavant since also illustrated Butchart’s Never Dance with a Dinosaur.