Kirsty Gunn was brought up in Wellington and educated at Victoria University (BA Hons) and Oxford University (M.Phil). She is currently the Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Dundee and lives in Scotland and England. Gunn is best known in this country for her novel Rain (Faber 1994) which was made into a film, and for her short stories which have been published internationally including in the collection This Place You Return to is Home (Granta,1999).

Gunn’s other novels are The Keepsake (Granta, 1997), Featherstone (Faber, 2001) and The Boy and the Sea (Faber, 2006) which was named Scottish Book of the Year 2007. Her latest book, 44 Things (Atlantic Books) was published in 2007 and is a collection of writings on Gunn’s domestic and creative life. Gunn has a wide profile in the UK as a writer and reviewer. She is married to David Graham who is the Managing Director of Granta and they have two daughters. She has won the Scottish Arts Council Award and the London Arts Board Award for Writers.

Gunn’s proposed project will combine a number of genres – short story, essay, memoir and history – and look at the subject of Katherine Mansfield.