John Bolland

John Bolland writes novels, short fiction and occasional poetry. Although raised on a housing scheme near Glasgow, he has been based in rural Aberdeenshire since 1989. He is married with four children. For most of his adult life, he has supported his family and his writing by working (full or part-time) in the offshore oil & gas industry in the UK and overseas.

John’s primary interest is in prose forms and particularly the novel. He has completed two full length novels to date, both as-yet unpublished - A Murder of Crows (2003), The Dark Numbers (2006). He is currently working on two parallel projects of novel-lenth projects Bass - a novel in English set in West Africa and the Far East -and Line of Sight – a novel in Scots.

In 2007, his short story, A Good Place to Get, was runner-up in the V.S. Pritchett Short Story Award run by the Royal Society for Literature and in 2008 he won 3rd prize in the annual Fish Short Story Competition with his story Scottishe.

Other short stories and novel excerpts have appeared Pulp.net (2003), Snacks After Swimming (2005), The Glasgow Seeker (2005), The Tide Breathes Out (2006), Pushing Out the Boat (2007), The London Magazine (2007) and Lallans (2008).

John’s writing has always engaged with themes of parenting and inter-generational responsibility and in recent years his interests have broadened to encompass issues of agency and complicity and particularly the creation and sustainability of identity in a globalised and post-modern context. The Dark Numbers specifically explored complicity with and resistance to economic and cultural globalisation and these themes are further developed in his latest novel-in-progress, Bass.

John graduated with distinction from Glasgow University’s M.Litt. Creative Writing course in 2005.