Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
Kirsty Gunn, BA (Hons), M.Phil., educated at Victoria University and Oxford, is the author of six novels - Rain, The Keepsake, Featherstone, The Boy and the Sea, The Big Music and Caroline's Bikini - extended essays and short stories about identity and Katherine Mansfield - Thorndon, My Katherine Mansfield Project and Going Bush - as well as two collections of short stories - This Place you Return to is Home and Infidelitites - and 44 Things, a collection of essays, fragments and stories. She is the recipient of a number of awards and prizes including the Scottish Arts Council Bursary for Literature, the New York Times Notable Book award, Sundial Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year. The Big Music was shortlisted for the James Tait Black and Impac Awards and was a Guardian Book of the Year and winner of the New Zealand Book of the Year and her most recent novel, Caroline's Bikini, is just out in paperback this year.
Her last collection of short stories, "Infidelities", published in November 2014, was awarded the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2015 and was also shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. She is published by Faber and Faber and internationally, and her work has been made into films, theatre, dance and widely broadcast.
She has previously taught Creative Writing at Oxford University and at a number of writing seminars and schools and now teaches modules in Writing Practice and Study, and directs, with Gail Low, the WritersRead series at Tonic in Dundee. She lives in London and Scotland with her husband and two daughters.
Further information about Kirsty is available on her website at http://www.kirsty-gunn.com/.
Teaching
Undergraduate and Graduate modules in Writing Practice and Study; PhD supervision
Research
Fiction - Short and long; Essays
Research interests
Relevance of fiction and the imagination in the 21st century
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
Projects
- 1 Finished
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Imagined Spaces: Practice based knowledge and research
Gunn, K. (Investigator), Low, G. (Investigator) & Mackenna, T. (Investigator)
31/03/19 → 20/12/20
Project: Research
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Taihape, Tūrangi and the Highlands of Scotland
Gunn, K. (Lead / Corresponding author), 19 Feb 2025, Newsroom.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article
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Looking at the lonely ones: The welcome revival of Janet Frame's uncanny, disruptive novel
Gunn, K., 23 Aug 2024, In: TLS -Times Literary Supplement. 6334Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review › peer-review
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Making Sound Sense: Musing on Burns, Music and the Piobaireachd
Gunn, K. (Lead / Corresponding author), Sept 2024, In: Burns Chronicle. 133, 2, p. 225-233 9 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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On Risk! Carl Phillips and the Poetry of Feeling
Gunn, K. (Lead / Corresponding author), Jun 2024, In: PN Review. 50, 5Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Prizes
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Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Gunn, K. (Recipient), 2024
Prize: Election to learned society
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Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
Gunn, K. (Recipient), 2020
Prize: Election to learned society
Activities
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Kirsty Gunn - Book Event and Masterclass
Gunn, K. (Speaker)
21 Jan 2025Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course
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Action Fiction! An Evening of Performance, Discussion and Entertainment
Gunn, K. (Participant)
11 Jun 2024Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Other event
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Edinburgh International Book Festival 2024
Gunn, K. (Participant)
13 Aug 2024Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Other event
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An afternoon with Kirsty Gunn, author of Pretty Ugly
Gunn, K. (Participant)
12 Jul 2024Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Other event
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Cork International Short Story Festival 2024
Gunn, K. (Participant)
18 Oct 2024Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Other event
Press/Media
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Why NZ women novelists are like no one else in the world
26/06/24
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Research
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Rough Trade acquires Kirsty Gunn’s story collection
25/03/24
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Research
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Transmission orale et transmission écrite : les paradoxes de la tradition dans The Lost Pibroch (1896) de Neil Munro et The Big Music (2012) de Kirsty Gunn
3/06/23
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Research