Jackie Kay

Jackie Kay is a prolific writer of short stories, novels, poetry and plays. She has proved to be an enormously popular guest at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, regularly attracting capacity audiences and you can hear some of her past events in our media gallery. Her first collection of poetry, The Adoption Papers (1991), was inspired by her experience of being adopted by and growing up with a white family in Glasgow. The collection won both a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award. She has since gone on to win numerous other awards for her writing including the 1998 Guardian Fiction Prize for her first novel Trumpet and the 2008 CLPE Poetry Award for Red, Cherry Red, a collection of poetry for children. In 2006, Jackie Kay was awarded an MBE for services to literature.

In 2010 she published Red Dust Road, a memoir about meeting her Nigerian birth father, which she describes as a love letter to her adoptive parents. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

Telegraph interview with Jackie Kay

Herald interview with Jackie Kay

YouTube video of Jackie Kay reading her poetry