I am an Edinburgh based writer. So far unpublished, but with some competition success:
The opening of my first historical manuscript, The Girl Who Fled the Picture, was longlisted for the Adventures in Fiction 2018 New Voices competition.
My first novel was shortlisted for the Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award in 2014. Then I did the Curtis Brown Creative six month online course in 2016, which really helped me polish my writing and editing skills. The contemporary novel I workshopped with them was long listed for the 2017 Retreat West First Chapter Award and 2016 Exeter Novel Award and won the Literary Sofa Book Pitch Spotlight in 2021.
I prefer novel writing to short prose but I have had some success with short pieces. Most notably, I was selected to read my short story in the Edinburgh City of Literature Story Shop, at 2017’s Edinburgh International Book Festival.
In 2019 I set up the Edinburgh Writers’ Forum (@forum_writers) with two writer friends. We all felt there were too many things about writing we’d had to learn the hard way. Our forum is a place for writer professional skills development and networking. It proved hugely popular and we will resume events when Covid allows.
I have just completed The Princess Painter, my third historical manuscript, a dual timeline/narrative set between contemporary UK/Russia, then London and St Peterburg in the 1800s. Inspired by Christina Robertson, a Scottish artist who painted in the Romanov court in the nineteenth century. I love to find a corner of history where a real woman’s point of view has been overlooked, then bring that to modern readers through fiction.
