The Saltire Society Literary Awards rely on expert panels of judges, helping us recognise a range of works from first published books to poetry.
Literary Awards Judging Panels 2019
Fiction Judges
Rosemary Ward
Rosemary Ward is the current director of programmes at the Scottish Book Trust. She was formerly the director of the Gaelic Books Council.
Ali Bowden
Ali Bowden is the Director of Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust. Prior to joining the trust in 2006 she spent 10 years working in book publishing in Scotland, such as a commissioning editor at Polygon, and right manager at Edinburgh University Press. She has also worked variously in journalism, and several Scottish arts and culture committees as a speaker, chairing events and as an advisor.
Ken Cockburn
Ken Cockburn is a published poet, freelance writer, translator, editor and writing tutor. His first collection of poems Souvenirs and homelands was shortlisted for a Saltire Award in 1998. He also now runs Edinburgh Poetry Tours.
Alasdair McKillop
Alasdair McKillop is a regular reviewer of fiction and non-fiction books for publications including the Scottish Review of Books, The Herald/Sunday Herald, the New Statesman and The Times Literary Supplement. He participated in the first Emerging Critics programme supported by Creative Scotland and run by the Scottish Review of Books. He has an undergraduate degree in history and politics and a postgraduate degree in Scottish history from the University of Edinburgh, where he also tutored for a time. Alasdair currently works as Head of Monitoring at Newsdirect.
First Book Judges
Elenor Collins
Eleanor Collins is Editorial Director at Floris Books in Edinburgh. She has many years experience assessing and editing quality fiction, non-fiction and children’s books in Scotland, England and Australia. She has led bespoke professional development workshops for editors drawing on her academic background in narrative theory and the novel.
Laura E Waddell
Laura Waddell is UK Publishing Director of Tramp Press, columnist for the Scotsman, sits on the board of Gutter magazine, and has contributed to the BBC, Guardian, Times Literary Supplement and an array of anthology publications.
Andrés N. Ordorica
Andrés N. Ordorica is a writer and educator based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His work has been featured in Confluence Medway, The Acentos Review, “We Were Always Here” by 404 ink, and “The Colour of Madness” by Stirling Publishing. He is an active member of The Scottish BAME Writers Network which works to create opportunities for diverse writers within the Scottish writing scene. Previously, he has served as a creative practitioner with Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (USA) and Fighting Words (Ireland).
Prof Louise Welsh
Louise Welsh is an author of short stories and psychological thrillers. She has also written three plays, edited volumes of prose and poetry, and contributed to various journals and anthologies. Author of eight novels including The Cutting Room, A Lovely Way to Burn and Death is a Welcome Guest.
Vineet Lal
Vineet Lal is a literary translator from French to English, based in Scotland. He has degrees in French from the University of Edinburgh and Princeton University, and in Translating and Conference Interpreting from Heriot-Watt University. In 2010 he was awarded one of the first-ever Mentorships in Literary Translation by the British Centre for Literary Translation, and in 2011 published his first full-length translation, Lacrimosa by Régis Jauffret. He is currently working on a translation of The Woman Who Never Grew Old by Grégoire Delacourt, and his first translated children’s book, Panthera Tigris, will be published later this year. His literary interests include the French nouveau roman, childhood in French cinema and children’s fiction, particularly the work of C.S. Lewis, Philip Pullman, Alan Garner and Tove Jansson. He has also interpreted for Francophone authors at the Edinburgh International Book Festival for many years – including Goncourt winners Alexis Jenni and Tahar Ben Jelloun, Annie Ernaux and Michel Bussi – and has been a Trustee of Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature since 2013.
History Judges
Prof Chris Whatley
Chris Whatley is a Professor of Scottish History at the University of Dundee. His specialist field is Scotland history from the seventeenth century. The book that he considers to best represents him is his award winning book The Scots and the Union released in the run up to the Independence referendum in 2014.
Prof Richard Oram
Professor Richard Oram is a Dean of Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Stirling. In 2008 he was appointed a member of the Historic Environment Advisory Council for Scotland.
Dr Annie Tindley
Dr Annie Tindley is a senior lecturer in Modern British History at Newcastle University. She specialises in rural and aristocratic elites in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Dr David Caldwell
David is an archaeologist and historian with a life-long interest in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland. From 1973 until he retired in 2012 he was a curator in the National Museums of Scotland, latterly as Keeper of Scotland and Europe and Keeper of Archaeology. He is currently the President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Chair of Fife Cultural Trust and a board member of the National Trust for Scotland.
Prof Jane Dawson
Jane Dawson is the John Laing Professor Emerita of Reformation History at the University of Edinburgh, having retired to north-east Fife in 2017. Her research has focussed upon Scottish and British history during the late medieval and early modern periods. Her most recent book was a biography of John Knox (2015) and she is now trying to escape from the shadow of the Scottish Reformer.
Non Fiction Judges
Meaghan Delahunt
Meaghan Delahunt is an award-winning novelist and short story writer. Born in Melbourne, she has lived in Edinburgh since 1992. Her latest novel The Night-Side of the Country will be published in 2020.
Abby Cull
Abby Cull is originally from the United States, but is currently based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She enjoys travelling, writing, and reading. Working as a bookseller has allowed her to fully embrace her love of books, and share it with others.
John Herdman
John Herdman is a novelist, short story writer and literary critic. He is the author of 17 books which includes five novels and various works of shorter fiction, a play, two critical studies and a memoir.
Prof Donna Heddle
Donna is Director of the UHI Institute for Northern Studies, which is based in Kirkwall, Lerwick, and Perth with associated members across the UHI network. She has won awards for course development and design. Her research interests are Scottish and Northern Isles cultural history, Renaissance language and literature, and cultural tourism.
Dr Kevin Guyan
Dr Kevin Guyan is an equality, diversity and inclusion researcher based in Edinburgh. He is Head of Knowledge and Research at the higher education organisation Advance HE, sits on the board of Evaluation Support Scotland, and runs the research and data consultancy EDI Scotland. He is passionate about the use of research, data and evidence to fight against inequality and diversify Scotland’s cultural and literary sectors.
Poetry Judges
Prof Rory Watson
Now a Professor Emeritus, Roderick Watson has lectured and published widely on modern Scottish literature, and has published two collections of poetry.
Dr Rhian Williams
Rhian Williams is the author of The Poetry Toolkit: The Essential Guide to Studying Poetry (3rd edition, 2019) and has published many essays on poetry since 1780. She has a particular interest in ‘ecological’ writing and lives and works in Glasgow. You can find her at rhianwilliamswriting.com
Jennifer Morag Henderson
Jennifer Morag Henderson is a writer from Inverness. She is the author of the acclaimed biography Josephine Tey: A Life. Her articles, poems and short stories have been widely published, and she is currently working on a historical biography. An experienced lecturer, Jennifer has spoken at many book festivals and venues including the British Library. She edited literary magazine Random Acts of Writing from 2006-2010, and has worked in several different areas of the book trade, including bookselling, libraries and publishing.
Julie Danskin
Julie runs Golden Hare Books in Edinburgh, which won Independent Bookshop of the Year in 2019. She has a decade of experience working with books, from small academic publisher to running literary events of all sizes. She is also a writer, with poetry published in 404 Ink Magazine, fiction in the Listen Softly anthology Luminous, Defiant and reviews in Gutter and The Bookseller.
Colin Waters
Colin Waters is a former journalist who wrote for the Herald, Sunday Herald, Scotsman and New Statesman. In 2014, he edited Be the First to Like This: New Scottish Poetry for Vagabond Voices, for whom he has acted as a poetry editor. Since 2012, he has worked at the Scottish Poetry Library. Currently, he is co-editing an anthology of poems about places in Scotland for Birlinn.
Research
Daniel Cook
Dr Daniel Cook is a English Literature lecturer at the University of Dundee. Specialising in eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature, book history, authorship and appropriation studies, the history of the novel, and Scottish and Irish writing more broadly.
Dr Heather H. Yeung
Heather H. Yeung (楊希蒂) is a literary critic, theorist, artist book maker, and poet. She teaches in English and Creative Writing at the University of Dundee, is co-director of the Centre for Scotland’s Land Futures, and editor of the Journal Northern Scotland. She is the author of Spatial Engagement with Poetry, as well as numerous articles and book chapters on interdisciplinary environmental literature and thought. She exhibits poetry-objects and artists books internationally and her poetic archive is held in the Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh.
Robin Smith
Robin Smith is the Head of Collections and Research at National Library of Scotland. Based at Edinburgh and Kelvin Hall, Glasgow.