Dorothy Alexander

Dorothy Alexander is a writer and Creative Writing tutor living in the south of Scotland, with an interest in experimental poetry and fiction in English and Scots. She has a Masters in Creative Writing and a PhD from the University of Glasgow, and she has won the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday Short Story Competition.

The Mauricewood Devils is a meticulously researched, semi-fictionalised account of the Mauricewood pit disaster near Edinburgh in 1889. The story is told by seven year old Martha and her stepmother Jess. Their accounts are given in the aftermath of the death of Martha’s father and 62 others in the accident. With many of the miners’ families left destitute, the women of Mauricewood undertake a campaign for compensation and justice against the criminally negligent pit owners.

Alexander’s own great-great-grandfather was a victim in the Mauricewood pit disaster and she deftly mixes historical fact and compelling fiction to create a gripping historical drama with a strong political and personal resonance.