Catherine Hokin

I am a Glasgow-based author with a degree in history and previous careers in marketing, politics, and teaching english, including persuading reluctant teenage boys into creative writing.

I am passionate about telling character-based stories: whatever time period people inhabit we share many of the same emotional and mental challenges, it is the mechanisms we have to respond with that alter. My first novel Blood and Roses is a work of historical fiction set in the medieval Wars of the Roses,  centring on Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI of England, and an overlooked, frequently misjudged player in the conflict. My second novel will be published in January 2020. This is about WW2 and is set in Berlin and Argentina, a second WW2 novel also partly set in Berlin will follow. I also write short stories which have been published in iScot, Mslexia, Writers' Forum and The Scottish Arts Club Anthology. I was the winner of the 2019 Flash Fiction Short Story Competition. These stories have a dark element, sometimes comically so.

I have led a number of school, library and Glasgow CCA workshops and chaired conference and author panels. Topics that could be explored beyond readings and discussions of the writing and publishing process include turning history into stories, using historical photographs and artefacts, writing short stories, bringing characters to life, the power of setting, and planning and editing work. Workshops aim to develop confidence, voice and a writers' toolkit.