Emma Whitelaw is an English Literature UoG MA graduate and Edinburgh Napier undergraduate in English and Film. She is published in TummyAche Magazine Vol 2. The Jealousy Issue and Vol 3. The Lazy Issue, as well as Broken Sleep Books’ anthology titled The Last Song dedicated to the late Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit. Emma writes life into the underrepresented non-humans and the inanimate, integrating Scots into her work, she magnifies the magic in mundanity. Using florid language, enjoying confusing the reader and then clarifying. Often vulgar, but always beautiful, her intention is to explore really real relationships and themes through the unreal.

I grew up in an incredibly creative household, where books were eaten for breakfast and silence punctuated music. The wildlife centre my mum manages and we lived in also added an instant eccentricity to my personality. A wannabe writer since age eleven, I’ve found my influences from all over!

I read a lot of genres but find that magical realism and fantasy stories last the longest in my mind and impact me the most. It was in university while studying Nightwood by Djuna Barnes that I found my personal, authorial voice. I wrote a short response piece to the novel (that I may share here one day) trying to embody the florid language, illuminative metaphors, and grandiose aesthetic; This made me truly fall in love with the connecting of words.