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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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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Skin and wood: The singular music of the Highland bagpipes
Gunn, K., 6 Feb 2026, TLS -Times Literary Supplement, 6398.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Book/Film/Article review
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To travel both and be one traveller… Muriel Spark and Katherine Mansfield Give Life Lessons on Poetry in Prose
Gunn, K., Jan 2026, PN Review, 52, 3.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article
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Double-Think
Gunn, K., May 2025, PN Review, 51, 5.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article
Open Access -
Fear and Fearlessness: Pretty Ugly by Kirsty Gunn (Otago University Press, 2024), 197pp, $35
Gunn, K. (Subject) & Neale, E., 1 Mar 2025, In: The Landfall Tauraka Review.Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review › peer-review
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Imagined Spaces
Gunn, K., 9 Dec 2025, Crossing Oceans to be Home: A Festschrift for Tom Hubbard. Spring, I. (ed.). Rymour Books, 1 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › 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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Benengeli 2026. A Conversation about Libraries in Literature
Borgo, K. S. (Speaker), Gunn, K. (Speaker) & Grohmann, A. (Speaker)
28 May 2026Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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Judge for the V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize 2026
Gunn, K. (Reviewer), Doshi, T. (Reviewer), Vowler, T. (Reviewer) & Webb, H. (Recipient)
26 Feb 2026Activity: Other activity types › Other
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The 11th Symposium in the Literary Activism Series
Gunn, K. (Speaker)
28 Mar 2026Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course
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Shortlisted for 2025 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize
Gunn, K. (Member)
6 Mar 2025Activity: Other activity types › Other
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Creative Essaying/Creative Critique
Gunn, K. (Presenter)
13 Oct 2025Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Press/Media
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Curious Festival holds most northerly event yet at Lairg
19/09/25
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Other
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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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