Lesley Glaister

Lesley Glaister is the author of sixteen novels. Her first, Honour Thy Father (Secker and Warburg, 1990), won Somerset Maugham and Betty Trask awards, and several others have been long- and shortlisted for literary prizes, including Little Egypt (Salt, 2014) which received a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered prize. Though her work has been described as ‘domestic gothic’ and ‘macabre’, the darker material is always leavened by shafts of light, humour and a sense of the absurd.

Although most comfortable with the novel, Lesley also writes short stories. ‘Just Watch Me’ was included in Best British Short Stories (Salt, 2013). She has edited an anthology of women’s short stories, Are You She? (Tindal Street Press, 2004); written several dramas for BBC Radio 4, and, following a commission by the Crucible Theatre Sheffield, had a play, Bird Calls, staged there in 2010. She has published two pamphlets of poems: Visiting the Animal and Nub (both Mariscat Press, 2015 and 2019).

Walking is important to her creative process, and she rarely begins her writing day without a brisk and meditative morning walk. She breaks up her writing with bouts of yoga to keep both her circulation and her ideas flowing.

Lesley, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, teaches creative writing at all levels, most recently as Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews. She has three grown-up sons and lives in Edinburgh – with frequent sojourns to Orkney – with her husband, the writer Andrew Greig, and Eddie the Cockapoo.