Jonathan Earl Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction fina…
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer. He is best known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in for Lafayette County where he spe…
Probably most famous for his gritty depiction of a gang of Scottish Heroin addicts, Trainspotting (1993), Welsh focuses on the darker side of human nature and drug use. All of his novels are set in hi…
Alasdair James Gray was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, Lanark (1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction. He published novels, short stories, plays, poetry and translations, and…
After studying history at Glasgow University, Louise Welsh established a second-hand bookshop, where she worked for many years. Her first novel, The Cutting Room, won several awards, including the 200…
Compton Mackenzie was born into a theatrical family. His father, Edward Compton, was an actor and theatre company manager; his sister, Fay Compton, starred in many of James M. Barrie's plays, includin…
Christian Kracht is a Swiss writer and journalist. Kracht was born in Saanen. His father, Christian Kracht Sr., was chief representative for the Axel Springer publishing company in the 1960s. Kracht at…
Italo Calvino was born in Cuba and grew up in Italy. He was a journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy (1952-1959), the Cosmicomics col…
Janice Galloway was born in Ayrshire in 1955 where she worked as a teacher for ten years. Her first novel, The Trick is to keep Breathing, now widely considered to be a contemporary Scottish classic, …
Louise Kennedy grew up near Belfast. Trespasses is her first novel. She is also the author of a collection of short stories, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac. She has written for The Guardian, The…
Rory Carroll (b. 1972) is a journalist who started his career in Northern Ireland. As a foreign correspondent for the Guardian, he reported from the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, Latin American,…
Yael van der Wouden is a writer and teacher. She currently lectures in creative writing and comparative literature in the Netherlands. Her essay on Dutch identity and Jewishness, On (Not) Reading Anne…
Catherine Roxburgh Carswell (née Macfarlane) was a Scottish author, biographer and journalist, and a contributor to the Scottish Renaissance. Her work is considered an integral part of Scottish women'…
Graeme Macrae Burnet was born in Kilmarnock in 1967. He studied English Literature at Glasgow University before spending some years teaching in France, the Czech Republic and Portugal. He then took an…
Elodie Harper is a journalist and prize winning short story writer. Her story 'Wild Swimming' won the 2016 Bazaar of Bad Dreams short story competition, run by The Guardian and Hodder & Stoughton and j…
Ambrose Parry is the pen name for husband and wife Chris Brookmyre (known mostly for his crime novels) and Dr Marisa Haetzman, a consultant anaesthetist. It is the latter's interest in medical history…
Douglas Stuart is a NY Times bestselling author. His latest novel, John of John, published in May 2026. His work has been translated into over 40 languages. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain, is the winne…
Margaret McDonald is a Scottish author who lives in Glasgow. In 2025, at the age of 27, Margaret became the youngest ever recipient of the Carnegie Medal for Writing for her debut novel ‘Glasgow Boys’…
