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Douglas Bruton

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Contact: [email protected]
Local authority: Scottish Borders
Languages: English
Douglas Bruton's headshot

Most of my working life has been spent as a teacher in a Scottish high school. I have tutored adults in creative writing, delivered talks to audiences, completed readings at the Edinburgh Book Festival, successfully chaired an event at Glasgow’s Aye Write festival, as well as having delivered a wide range of public readings.

I have won many short story competitions including The Neil Gunn Short Story Prize, HISSAC, Federation of Writers (Scotland) Vernal Equinox Short Story Competition and The William Soutar Prize. My work features in many anthologies including Umbrellas of Edinburgh (Freight Books), And Nothing Remains (Fiction Desk) and Modern Shorts (Fiction Attic Press). My novel for 8-12-year-olds was published in 2009, The Chess Piece Magician (Floris Books).

More recently I have had success with literary fiction: Mrs Winchester’s Gun Club (Scotland Street Press) was described by The Scotsman as ‘brilliant’ in concept and ‘beautifully written’; Blue Postcards (Fairlight Books) was commended by the chair of the judges for the Goldsmith’s Prize and long-listed for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2022. And in 2023 Fairlight Books will publish another short novel, With or Without Angels, a creative response to artist Alan Smith’s work ‘The New World’.

Local authorities will visit

Aberdeen City; Aberdeenshire; Angus; Argyll and Bute; Clackmannanshire; Dumfries and Galloway; Dundee; East Ayrshire; East Dunbartonshire; East Lothian; East Renfrewshire; Edinburgh City; Falkirk; Fife; Glasgow City; Highland; Inverclyde; Midlothian; Moray; Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles); North Ayrshire; North Lanarkshire; Orkney Islands; Perth and Kinross; Renfrewshire; Scottish Borders; Shetland; South Ayrshire; South Lanarkshire; Stirling; West Dunbartonshire; West Lothian

Events will deliver

Chairing events; Panel event; Reading; Talk; Workshop

Topics of work

Contemporary fiction

Age groups published for

Teens; Adults

Age groups will work with

18+

Audience size

0-10; 11-30; 31-100; 100-500; 500+