Margaret Elphinstone
Margaret Elphinstone is a Scottish author of novels, short stories and poetry. She is known for The sea road, a re-telling of the Viking exploration of the North Atlantic.Biography
Margaret Elphinstone was born in Kent, England. At one point she studied at Queen's College in London. She also graduated with a degree in English from Durham University. She was until recently, Professor of Writing in the Department of English Studies at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, now retired. Her academic research areas are Scottish writers and the literature of Scotland's offshore islands.
She did extensive study tours in Iceland, Greenland, Labrador and the United States. She lived for eight years in the Shetland Islands and is the mother of two children.
Before becoming professor in Glasgow in 2003, she worked at a variety of jobs in different locations. Some of her experiences were later used in her books:
for The Sea Road
- 1993 Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary
- 1994 Scottish Arts Council Travel Award
- 2001 Scottish Arts Council Spring Book Award
for Hy Brasil
- 1997 Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary
for Voyageurs
- 2000 Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary