Alan Spence

Alan Spence (born 1947) is a Scottish writer and is Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen, where he is also artistic director of the annual WORD Festival. He was born in Glasgow, and much of his work is set in the city.

Spence is an award-winning poet and playwright, novelist and short-story writer. His first work was the collection of short stories Its Colours They are Fine, first published in 1977. This was followed by two plays, Sailmaker in 1982 and Space Invaders in 1983. The novel The Magic Flute appeared in 1990 along with his first book of poetry, Glasgow Zen. In 1991, another of his plays, Changed Days, was published before a brief hiatus. He returned in 1996 with Stone Garden, another collection of short stori

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Sophocles

Sophocles (497/496 BC-406/405 BC), (Greek: Σοφοκλής ; German: Sophokles , Russian: Софокл , French: Sophocle ) was an ancient Greek tragedian, known as one of three from whom at least one play has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those of Aeschylus; and earlier than, or contemporary with, those of Euripides. Sophocles wrote over 120 plays, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. For almost fifty years, Sophocles was the most celebrated playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens which took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia
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Louis de Bernières

Louis de Bernières is an English novelist. He is known for his 1994 historical war novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin. In 1993 de Bernières was selected as one of the "20 Best of Young British Novelists", part of a promotion in Granta magazine. Captain Corelli's Mandolin was published in the following year, winning the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book. It was also shortlisted for the 1994 Sunday Express Book of the Year. It has been translated into over 11 languages and is an international best-seller.
On 16 July 2008, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in the Arts by the De Montfort University in Leicester, which he had attended when it was Leicester Polytechnic.
Politically, he identifies himself as Eurosceptic and has voiced his su
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Virginia Woolf

(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
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Ira Levin

Levin graduated from the Horace Mann School and New York University, where he majored in philosophy and English.

After college, he wrote training films and scripts for television.

Levin's first produced play was No Time for Sergeants (adapted from Mac Hyman's novel), a comedy about a hillbilly drafted into the United States Air Force that launched the career of Andy Griffith. The play was turned into a movie in 1958, and co-starred Don Knotts, Griffith's long-time co-star and friend. No Time for Sergeants is generally considered the precursor to Gomer Pyle, USMC.

Levin's first novel, A Kiss Before Dying, was well received, earning him the 1954 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. A Kiss Before Dying was turned into a movie twice, first in 1956,
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Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson was born in York and now lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and she has been a critically acclaimed international bestselling author ever since.

She is the author of a collection of short stories, Not the End of the World, and of the critically acclaimed novels Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Case Histories, and One Good Turn.

Case Histories introduced her readers to Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, and won the Saltire Book of the Year Award and the Prix Westminster.

When Will There Be Good News? was voted Richard & Judy Book Best Read of the Year. After Case Histories and One Good Turn, it was her third novel to fea
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Gerald Durrell

Gerald "Gerry" Malcolm Durrell was born in India in 1925. His elder siblings are Lawrence Durrell, Leslie Durrell, and Margaret Durrell. His family settled on Corfu when Gerald was a boy and he spent his time studying its wildlife. He relates these experiences in the trilogy beginning with My Family And Other Animals, and continuing with Birds, Beasts, And Relatives and The Garden Of The Gods. In his books he writes with wry humour and great perception about both the humans and the animals he meets.

On leaving Corfu he returned to England to work on the staff of Whipsnade Park as a student keeper. His adventures there are told with characteristic energy in Beasts In My Belfry. A few years later, Gerald began organising his own animal-collec
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Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pen name of the Scottish author James Leslie Mitchell.

Born in Auchterless and raised in Arbuthnott, then in Kincardineshire, Mitchell started working as a journalist for the Aberdeen Journal and the Scottish Farmer at age 16. In 1919 he joined the Royal Army Service Corps and served in Iran, India and Egypt before enlisting in the Royal Air Force in 1920. In the RAF he worked as a clerk and spent some time in the Middle East. He married Rebecca Middleton in 1925, with whom he settled in Welwyn Garden City. He began writing full-time in 1929. Mitchell wrote numerous books and shorter works under both his real name and nom de plume before his early death in 1935 of peritonitis brought on by a perforated ulcer.
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Andrew Greig

Andrew Greig is a Scottish writer who grew up in Anstruther, Fife. He studied philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and is a former Glasgow University Writing Fellow and Scottish Arts Council Scottish/Canadian Exchange Fellow. He lives in Orkney and Edinburgh and is married to author Lesley Glaister.
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Benjamin Zephaniah

A British-Jamaican writer, dub poet and Rastafari. He was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008.
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Nick Bradley

Nick Bradley holds a PhD from UEA focussing on the figure of the cat in Japanese literature. He lived in Japan for many years where he worked as a translator, and currently teaches on the Creative Writing master's programme at the University of Cambridge. His debut novel, The Cat and The City, was published in 2020.

Four Seasons in Japan is his second, and was published in the UK on June 22nd 2023 by Doubleday. His work has been translated into fourteen languages.
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Bob Mortimer

Robert Renwick Mortimer is an English comedian, podcast presenter and actor. He is known for his work with Vic Reeves as part of their Vic and Bob comedy double act, and more recently the Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing series with comedian Paul Whitehouse. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Mor...]
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Elspeth Barker

Elspeth Barker was a novelist and journalist. She was educated in Scotland and at Oxford.

Barker's novel O Caledonia won four awards and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. She has reviewed extensively and written features for the Independent on Sunday, Guardian, Sunday Times, Observer, LRB, TLS, Harpers & Queen, Scotland on Sunday, Country Living, Vogue, etc. She edited the anthology Loss for Dent/Orion in 1997.

Her first husband was the poet George Barker by whom she had five children, including the novelist Raffaella Barker. In 2007 she married the writer Bill Troop.
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Jo Nesbø

Jo Nesbø is a bestselling Norwegian author and musician. He was born in Oslo and grew up in Molde. Nesbø graduated from the Norwegian School of Economics with a degree in economics. Nesbø is primarily famous for his crime novels about Detective Harry Hole, but he is also the main vocals and songwriter for the Norwegian rock band Di Derre. In 2007 Nesbø also released his first children's book, Doktor Proktors Prompepulver.

Series:
* Harry Hole
* Doktor Proktor

For exclusive content about Jo Nesbø and his books, register for the official fan newsletter: https://jonesbo.com/newsletter/
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David F. Ross

David F. Ross is a Scottish author, best known for the Disco Days trilogy of novels.

He resides in Kilmarnock with his wife and their two children.
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Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier was born on 13 May 1907 at 24 Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, London, the middle of three daughters of prominent actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and actress Muriel, née Beaumont. In many ways her life resembles a fairy tale. Born into a family with a rich artistic and historical background, her paternal grandfather was author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier, who created the character of Svengali in the 1894 novel Trilby, and her mother was a maternal niece of journalist, author, and lecturer Comyns Beaumont. She and her sisters were indulged as a children and grew up enjoying enormous freedom from financial and parental restraint. Her elder sister, Angela du Maurier, also became a writer, and her younger sist
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Frankie Boyle

Francis Martin Patrick "Frankie" Boyle is a Scottish comedian and writer, well known for his pessimistic, often controversial sense of humour. He was a permanent panellist on Mock the Week for seven series and has made guest appearances on several popular panel shows including Have I Got News for You, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Would I Lie to You?, You Have Been Watching, Never Mind the Buzzcocks (as guest host and team captain when Phill Jupitus was unavailable for recording), and Argumental, as well as writing for Jimmy Carr's Distraction and Sean Lock's TV Heaven, Telly Hell.
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Philip Paris

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Elif Shafak

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist and the most widely read female author in Turkey. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published seventeen books, eleven of which are novels. Her work has been translated into fifty languages. Shafak holds a PhD in political science and she has taught at various universities in Turkey, the US and the UK, including St Anne's College, Oxford University, where she is an honorary fellow. She is a member of Weforum Global Agenda Council on Creative Economy and a founding member of ECFR (European Council on Foreign Relations). An advocate for women's rights, LGBT rights and freedom of speech, Shafak is an inspiring public speaker and twice a TED Global speaker, each time receivin
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Callum McSorley

Callum McSorley is a writer based in Glasgow. His debut thriller, SQEAKY CLEAN, was published to great acclaim in 2023 and went on to win the prestigious McIlvanney Prize for best Scottish Crime Book of the Year. His new novel, PAPERBOY, sees the return of SQUEAKY CLEAN's troubled detective, Alison 'Ally' McCoist, newly promoted but sadly no less despised by her peers.
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Chris McQueer

Chris McQueer is a 20-something year old writer and sales assistant from Glasgow. After leaving school at 16, Chris found himself working under the hallowed title of ‘Sandwich Artist’ in Subway where he was the source of constant complaints as he couldn’t cut footlong sandwiches equally in half. Now he works in a sports shop where he is regarded as the greatest seller of trainers the world has ever seen.

Chris kept his writing a secret from his friends and family for several months before his girlfriend, Vanessa, encouraged him to share his work through Twitter (@ChrisMcQueer). Since then he has gone from strength to strength and has earned a reputation as ‘That Guy Oan Twitter Who Writes Short Stories’.
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Karen Campbell

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
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J.B. Priestley

John Boynton Priestley was an English writer. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and after schooling he worked for a time in the local wool trade. Following the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Priestley joined the British Army, and was sent to France - in 1915 taking part in the Battle of Loos. After being wounded in 1917 Priestley returned to England for six months; then, after going back to the Western Front he suffered the consequences of a German gas attack, and, treated at Rouen, he was declared unfit for active service and was transferred to the Entertainers Section of the British Army.

When Priestley left the army he studied at Cambridge University, where he completed a degree in Modern History and Political Science. Subsequently h
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Francine Toon

Francine Toon grew up in Sutherland and Fife, Scotland. Her poetry, written as Francine Elena, has appeared in The Sunday Times, The Best British Poetry 2013 and 2015 anthologies (Salt) and Poetry London, among other places. Pine was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award. She lives in London and works in publishing.
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Alice Hunter

After completing a psychology degree, Alice Hunter became an interventions facilitator in a prison. There, she was part of a team offering rehabilitation programmes to men serving sentences for a wide range of offences, often working with prisoners who'd committed serious violent crimes. Previously, Alice had been a nurse, working in the NHS. She now puts her experiences to good use in fiction. The Serial Killer’s Wife, The Serial Killer’s Daughter and The Serial Killer’s Sister all draw heavily on her knowledge of psychology and the criminal mind.
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Chris Broad

Chris Broad is a British filmmaker and founder of the Abroad in Japan YouTube channel, one of the largest foreign YouTube channels in Japan with over 2.5 million subscribers and 400 million views. Over ten years and two hundred videos, Chris has visited all of Japan's forty-seven prefectures, focusing Abroad in Japan on travel, food and culture. He has also covered contemporary issues through documentaries on the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. His experiences have made him a sought-after voice on life inside Japan and he has been featured on the BBC, TEDx, NHK and the Japan Times.
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Ena Lamont Stewart

Ena Lamont Stewart was a Scottish playwright. She was the daughter of a Church of Scotland minister whose family was originally from Canada and had settled in Glasgow. She married the Scottish actor Jack Stewart and they had a son, William. The couple joined Glasgow's MSU Repertory Theatre in Rutherglen.

Stewart was disturbed by the poverty in the Gorbals. She became a receptionist at the Sick Children's Hospital and witnessed malnutrition and other diseases.

Her first play was Distinguished Company. Her second play, Starched Aprons, was about the everyday trials of hospital life. Her third play, Men Should Weep, was a major theatrical landmark for the representation of Scottish class and women's issues. Glasgow Unity Theatre first performed
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