Zoe Strachan is one of Scotland’s leading contemporary writers. Her first novel Negative Space was released in paperback in February. It’s a darkly comic but frighteningly0 real tale of how a narrator copes with her brother’s death. The Herald said of it that "the author has a wonderful ear for dialogue and the Glasgow parts pin the city exactly." MyGlasgow grabbed some time with her.

Zoe Strachan was born in Kilmarnock in 1975 but moved to Glasgow when she was 17. Predicting a career in writing would have garnered long odds as she studied ’Archaeology and Philosophy’ at the University of Glasgow: "I hated English literature with a passion. I thought the way they taught it was wrong but I do just love to read books."

In her own admission her degree "held no practical use whatsoever," so it was her love of reading that persuaded her to study Mlitt in ’Creative Writing.’ "It went really well," she said, "partly due to whom I was studying with at the time. I was apprehensive about going but there were only about 14 of us and they helped in making me not want to run away from it all."

It seemed a very talented group, as with her in the classes was Rachel Seiffert and Louise Welsh, among others, both of whom have enjoyed massive success with their books The Dark Room and The Cutting Room. Zoe’s Negative Space certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed having been nominated for the Saltire First Book of the Year, the SAC Book of the Year, and winning a Betty Trask Award.

Negative Space shares its location between Glasgow and the Orkneys but despite her confession that: "I’ve been in Glasgow for only about 11 years now but it does really feel like home," she is considering upping sticks: "Well.I just want to see more of the world."