I write fiction, memoir in various forms, travel writing, essays, reviews and other literary journalism. I have published ten novels:
Night Waking (Granta, 2012)
Bodies of Light (Granta, 2014)
The Tidal Zone (Granta, 2016)
Signs for Lost Children (Granta, 2017)
Ghost Wall (Granta, 2018)
Summerwater (Picador, 2021)
The Fell (Picador, 2021)
Ripeness (Picador, 2025)
The Winter Guest (Picador, coming in 2026)
My two memoirs are Names for the Sea (Granta, 2012) and My Good Bright Wolf (Picador, 2024)
My Good Bright Wolf won the Saltire Non-fiction Book of the Year award in 2025. Other books have been shortlisted for prizes including the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Wellcome Prize, the Polari Prize, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize, the Wingate Prize and the Dublin Literary Award.
I was born in Scotland, grew up there and in the north of England, studied for BA, M.St and D.Phil degrees in English Literature at the University of Oxford and then taught Romantic and Victorian Literature and Creative Writing at universities in England and Europe for twenty-five years. I now live in Dublin.
I don’t use social media. To contact me about writing and reading, please approach my agent, Anna Webber at A.M.Heath; for book-related events, my publicist Camilla Elworthy at Picador.