On Monday 18 October at 7pm freelance writer Maggie Fergusson, author of George Mackay Brown: The Life (2006), introduced and answered questions on For the Islands I Sing (1997).

This event took place the day after the centenary of the birth of George Mackay Brown on 17 October 2021.

Seven Books 7 in the Centenary Book Group series was hosted by the GMB Fellowship and Orkney Library & Archive on Zoom. We were joined by people all over the world. If you have any comments, please email us at gmbfellows@gmail.com.

Maggie Fergusson is a freelance writer. She is the Literary Editor of The Tablet, and editor of the Royal Society of Literature Review. 

She has written for newspapers and magazines including The Times, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Observer and the Independent magazine.

Her first book, George Mackay Brown: The Life (John Murray, 2006), won the Saltire First Book Prize, the Marsh Biography Award, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award and the Scottish Arts Council Biography Award.

Her second biography, Michael Morpurgo: War Child to War Horse (Harper Collins, 2013) explores Michael Morpurgo’s life through seven biographical chapters, to which Morpurgo responds with seven stories.

Maggie is married with two daughters and lives in London.

Photograph: courtesy of Julian Anderson