I worked in academia for over twenty years and published a monograph on the Ulster-Scots poet James Orr which is based on my PhD thesis and titled James Orr, Poet and Irish Radical. I’ve also published many literary essays on Scottish and Irish literarure and history, especially on Robert Burns, Ulster literature and on crime fiction. I’ve presented on those topics in Ireland, GB, Europe and the USA, and in television and radio interviews. I’ve written creatively throughout my life and have published short stories and poems over the years, mainly in Ulster and Irish journals.

Now that I’m moving on from academia I want to follow my passion for creative writing and hope to publish a three volume series of novels, a family saga set mainly in Scotland titled Under the Linden Tree . I have it in a complete draft. The books draw on my own experiences as an undergraduate in the 1970s and reflect much of the culture and attitudes of the later twentieth century. The series blends genres: family saga, campus novel, coming of age story and romance. 

Landscape, literature and history, particularly of Ireland and Scotland, inspire me. I love creating powerfully realised settings, evoking the atmosphere of places and also writing strong, difficult or unusual characters. I enjoy hearing them reveal themselves in tightly constructed, crisp or dramatic dialogue.  My writing explores some dark themes and periods, but ultimately offers a positive message.