Kirsty Logan announced as inaugural recipient of the Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship

Scottish author Kirsty Logan has been selected as the first Dr Gavin Wallace Fellow, to be hosted by the Association for Scottish Literary Studies (ASLS) at the University of Glasgow. The announcement was made today during a special celebration of Scottish writing in tribute to Dr Gavin Wallace at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

The Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship was established earlier this year to commemorate the lifelong passion, commitment, wisdom and support shown by Gavin Wallace for Scotland’s literary community.

While undertaking the Fellowship Kirsty Logan will develop a new piece of writing called A Portable Shelter which explores Scottish fairy tales, folk stories, family relationships, loss and the sea.

On being awarded the Fellowship Kirsty said: ‘I'm thrilled... I still can't quite believe it. Gavin was an incredible supporter of literature in Scotland, and I gained so much personally and professionally from knowing him. With A Portable Shelter, I hope that I can go some way towards honouring how much his support helped me. The project is very close to my heart, and it's wonderful that the judging panel could see value in my ideas. I can't wait to get started!’

Kirsty is an award-winning, widely published writer of short fiction and journalism. Literary editor of The List, Kirsty also reviews books for several publications. Her first book, The Rental Heart & Other Fairytales, will be published by Salt in March 2014.

Aly Barr, Development Officer at Creative Scotland, said: ‘Kirsty Logan is a huge talent. From short stories, to longer fiction, like a stick of rock if you were to break her in half, she would have ‘storyteller’ written right through her. There couldn’t be a more appropriate young writer to take up the inaugural Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship than Kirsty. Gavin considered her a great talent, a gifted storyteller and a good friend.’

Nick Barley, Director of the Book Festival, said ‘The Book Festival has always been a great champion of debut and emerging authors. Kirsty Logan has been appearing in the Festival’s Unbound for the last couple of years and is sure to be here next year with her new novel. So it is a particular thrill that this talented writer is receiving such a timely and important boost from this Fellowship. It is only sad that Gavin won’t be around to celebrate with us.’