This series of residencies starts in May and runs through until August 2012 and is for writers to spend time on their own projects in the supportive interdisciplinary environment of Cove Park. Writers based in Scotland are eligible, and this year the three writers come from the fields of both prose and poetry and are staying for between two and five weeks to work on their specific projects. The residencies are for professional writers in mid-career, although occasionally an emerging writer of outstanding talent is awarded one. Previous Scottish writer residents include Rodge Glass and Alasdair Gray.

Louise studied history at the University of Glasgow where she gained an honours degree and then opened a second hand bookshop which she ran for several years before becoming a full-time writer. In 2000 she gained an MLitt in Creative Writing (Distinction) from the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde.

Louise has been the recipient of several awards including The John Creasey Memorial Dagger, the Saltire First Book Award, the Glenfiddich/Scotland on Sunday, Spirit of Scotland Writing Award and City of Glasgow Lord Provost’s Award for Literature. In 2007 she was included in Waterstone’s list of Twenty-five Authors for the Future.

Louise has written many short stories and produced features for most of the major British broadsheets. She has also written for the stage, most recently Memory Cells (2009) and also in 2009, wrote the libretto for a fifteen minute opera Remembrance Day, music by Stuart MacRae, which was included in Scottish Opera’s Five:15 series. She has also presented several radio features, most recently ‘The Gorbals Vampire’, a thirty minute feature for BBC Radio 4, producer David Stenhouse (March 2010) and ‘Tibet on the Banks of the Clyde’ for BBC Radio 3, Producer Louise Yeoman (September 2010).

Louise’s work has been translated into twenty languages and she has been awarded several international fellowships and residencies including a Robert Louis Stevenson Award (2003), Hawthornden Fellowship (2005), Stipendium at the Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia (2007/8), Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship (2008), Villa Hellebosch residency (2009) and a Ledig House residency (2010)