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Residency

Jennie Erdal

The Scottish Literature residency offers a writer resident in Scotland the opportunity to work on their own project whilst in the company of artists across other artforms. The residency, of up to six weeks in length, can be for writers in any genre, including poetry, memoir and fiction. Previous Scottish Writer residents include Jen Hadfield, Ron Butlin and Rodge Glass.

Jennie Erdal worked in literary publishing for many years as an editor and translator. At Quartet Books she managed the Russian list, and in the mid-eighties started Quartet Encounters, an imprint that featured literature in translation. For fifteen years she was also the ghostwriter of a London publisher. This experience became the focus of her memoir, Ghosting: A Double Life [Canongate, 2005], which became an international bestseller and Radio 4 Book of the Week. It was also shortlisted for a number of awards, including the J R Ackerley Prize for literary autobiography, and the Saltire Society Literary Awards. In September Ghosting will appear in a new cloth-bound limited edition. Her novel The Missing Shade of Blue [Little, Brown, 2012], is set in Edinburgh and tackles themes of loss, love and the nature of happiness. Subtitled ‘A Philosophical Adventure’, it is infused with the spirit of the Scottish philosopher David Hume, and was longlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize. Jennie has taught at the University of Dundee and has regularly tutored at Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre. She is currently writing a series of meditations on mortality, and finishing a novel about a friendship during the period of the Cold War. She lives in the East Neuk of Fife.