This is not about me

Janice Galloway

Janice Galloway was born in Ayrshire in 1955 where she worked as a teacher for 10 years. Her first novel, The Trick is to Keep Breathing, was published in 1990 to much critical acclaim and is considered a modern Scottish Classic. It is a painful, often wildly funny journey into the mental breakdown suffered by Joy, a thirty something Scottish teacher after the accidental death by drowning of her married lover.

Janice’s short stories in Blood and Where you find it are masterly. They both shock and revive. Blood contains one of the most devastating lessons in trust leaving the reader gasping to say nothing of the main character. Her second novel Foreign Parts follows two friends on holiday in France. It is a hilarious, touching, ferocious and romantic examination of relationships of all kinds. Janice’s interest and training in music brought us a fictionalised account of Clara Schuman, a musician, muse, wife and mother, in Clara.

In 2008, Janice gave us an insight into her upbringing in Ayrshire in the 50s and 60s in This is not about me. When her mother left her alcoholic father and set up home in a tiny attic room above a doctor's surgery, Janice quickly learned how to keep quiet and stay out of the way. Her mother hadn't expected or wanted another child and the young Janice wasn't allowed to forget that she was a burden. As her rage grows, she begins to think for herself. Slowly, unexpectedly, she finds her voice.

Janice’s collaborations have brought The Trick is to keep breathing to the stage and also produced Monster, an operatic adaptation of Mary Shelley’s life.

The many awards bestowed on Janice Galloway have included Scottish Arts Council Book Award, the MIND/Allan Lane Book of the Year, EM Forster award. In 2006, Janice won the Robert Louis Stevenson Award to write at Hotel Chevillon in Grez sur Loing, and in 2007, was the first Scottish recipient of the Jura Writer’s Retreat.

Join Janice in conversation with Moray Firth radio’s Nicky Marr.