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"I was born in Ayrshire in 1955, a second daughter of James Galloway and Janet Clark McBride. My mother was the second-youngest of seven, my father one of five. As adults, neither of them ever lived beyond the Ayrshire boundaries. It was common enough then.
I went to school locally for the required number of years and one extra - a sixth year at Ardrossan Academy - thinking I'd be a musician. Glasgow University seemed to finish that off and put nothing much else in its place. I spent one year as a Weflare Rights Worker, not sure I'd finish the degree at all, then behaved myself and became a teacher, which job satusfied me enough to make me stay with it for ten years. There are bits of it I still miss - all of them children. Talking to teenagers has to be one of the most interesting things an adult can do: assessing them by narrow criteria is not.
The first story I wrote - its happening at all is something I can't fully account for - was sent to a magazine called Edinburgh Review and its editor, Peter Kravitz, asked me to write more. I'm still writing and the education it has afforded me, through travel, reading and the daily business of forcing words to behave more cleanly in the hope they might mean something at the end of it, has been invaluable. I have one son and one husband who make the music for me these days. We live in Lanarkshire."