Valerie Gillies

Poet Valerie Gillies was born in Canada, but raised in south Lanarkshire and now lives in Edinburgh. She has been writing and teaching poetry and creative writing since the 1970s, working for organisations such as Artlink, the Avron foundation, and the University of Edinburgh. She completed her MLitt at the University of Edinburgh, after previously studying in India. She was the first editor of the SPL’s poetry map of Scotland.

Gillies is particularly known for her collaborative work with photographers and other visual artists, most notably for her collection Men and Beasts with Rebecca Marr. Other collections include The Tweed Journey and most recently The Spring Teller.

She was Edinburgh Makar between 2005 and 2008, and has won three SAC awards and the Eric Gregory Award for Edinburgh. She lives in Edinburgh with her husband, and has three children.