Originally from Edinburgh, I now live in the Scottish Highlands in a little cottage with a fine view across the Cromarty Firth. I miss the city very much, but I'm in a beautiful place so I can't be too sad.
I studied drawing and painting at Dundee Art College and was an artist for a number of years. I also worked at James Thin's Edinburgh Bookshop, surrounded on all sides by books but never imagining that I would ever have any ambitions as an author myself. I dusted the books, I alphabetised them, I studied their covers and the people who bought them. (I also read them of course.) Still the penny didn't drop that I would ever want this to be my world.
In 1995 I illustrated a book for Birlinn - The Scottish Cook by Judy Paterson. My first brush with the world of publishing.
And then for no reason at all - how it happened and exactly when or why, I couldn't say for sure - I began to write, and it was way more fun than I had ever expected. More fun than painting had ever been. And now I can't stop.
I studied drawing and painting at Dundee Art College and was an artist for a number of years. I also worked at James Thin's Edinburgh Bookshop, surrounded on all sides by books but never imagining that I would ever have any ambitions as an author myself. I dusted the books, I alphabetised them, I studied their covers and the people who bought them. (I also read them of course.) Still the penny didn't drop that I would ever want this to be my world.
In 1995 I illustrated a book for Birlinn - The Scottish Cook by Judy Paterson. My first brush with the world of publishing.
And then for no reason at all - how it happened and exactly when or why, I couldn't say for sure - I began to write, and it was way more fun than I had ever expected. More fun than painting had ever been. And now I can't stop.
A glimpse of my past life as an artist....
Illustration for The Scottish Cook (auth. Judy Paterson, pub. Birlinn, 1995, ISBN: 1-874744-35-1):
photograph and artwork copyright Fiona Lang
Illustration for The Scottish Cook (auth. Judy Paterson, Birlinn, 1995, ISBN: 1-874744-35-1): photograph and artwork copyright Fiona Lang
Illustration for The Scottish Cook (auth. Judy Paterson, pub. Birlinn, 1995, ISBN: 1-874744-35-1): photograph and artwork copyright Fiona Lang
detail of commissioned piece for Historic Scotland - Aberlemno Cross Slab waterhorses: photograph and artwork copyright Fiona Lang
(I blogged about this cross slab and the other Aberlemno Sculptured Stones here)
early work from art college, DofJ collection (why so glum? would love to have ears like that):
photograph and artwork copyright Fiona Lang
