John Aberdein is a writer based in Hoy, Orkney. Formerly a ring-net herring fisherman, scallop diver, sea kayak coach, political activist and English teacher, he suddenly began writing stories aged 47.  His novels are set in his native Aberdeen: Amande's Bed with a vivid reincarnation of 1956, and Strip the Willow with a combination of searing flashbacks to '68 as the city is enveloped in the huge threat of a dystopian 'now'.

Amande's Bed (Thirsty Books, Saltire First Book Award, 2005) is a good blasting story, a great river-rush of language and a book made of the combination of wisdom, energy and generosity. Startling, deeply bawdy, hilarious, dark, sweet, crowded and alive. In the end it moved me to tears. 
Ali Smith, The Guardian

Strip the Willow (Polygon, Scottish Arts Council Fiction of the Year, 2010) is as darkly dystopian and uncannily prophetic as its predecessor was tenderly, lyrically nostalgic. We’re once again in the city of Aberdeen, but in a future where ‘Uberdeen’ is being nothing less than shafted by the global corporation ‘LeopCorp’, which has taken over the bankrupt city council...

Gavin Wallace, Literature Director, Scottish Arts Council