A little about me

I am a writer.

I can’t not write. I’m always writing something, even if it’s in my head. I’ve known I was a writer since I was six years old, when I wrote a story about three incompetent witches that made my teacher guffaw. I like making people laugh.

I teach at the University of St Andrews, where I specialise in nineteenth-century literature and culture. I’ve published four books. The most recent one is about Victorian female detectives.

I also write journalism on arts, culture, travel, nature. I have written for the Times Literary Supplement, The Literary Review, the Irish Times, the Herald, The Weekly Standard and many academic journals. I have worked for over twenty years as a speechwriter for prominent NGO leaders, mostly on environmental issues, women’s rights, and education.  I write fiction, too.

Born and raised in Edinburgh, there is nothing that makes me happier than taking a ferry to a small Scottish island or climbing a big hill. I’m an eco-worrier, nature lover, and – when time allows – a painter. Bookshops and shops of art materials are the ones I could secretly live in, amongst the pigments and the parchments, quietly feasting on words and colours.