Emily Utter

Emily Utter is a Canadian writer who lives in Aberdeen. Her short stories, flash fiction, and creative non-fiction have appeared in journals and magazines all over the world, including Gutter, Northwest Review, Geist, and the best of Canadian flash fiction anthology, This Will Only Take a Minute.

Emily is the Writer-in-Residence at Aberdeen’s specialist palliative care hospital, Roxburghe House, where she helps patients write their life stories. This work has inspired her novel-in-progress, The Night Room, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize Trust ‘Discoveries Prize’ in 2023.

As a creative writing facilitator, Emily is health and social care focussed: she was the senior practitioner for the North East Culture Collective’s project with Alcohol & Drugs Action, has facilitated workshops for a number of local charities and organisations including Rape Crisis Grampian and regeneration area-based Fersands & Fountain Community Project. She has also led projects developed for NHS staff and has delivered workshops at NHS Grampian Medical Humanities and Palliative Care conferences.

Emily has read at and chaired events for the May Festival, WayWord, and Granite Noir. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Aberdeen, where she has also lectured in Creative Writing.