8th October 2025
Sara Sheridan is a writer and activist who is interested in diverse readings of history. She has written more than 20 books. An occasional journalist, Sara has reported for BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent and on ‘being a lady’ for Women’s Hour. Sara has written 2 radio plays, the most recent, Robert Burns: His Psychotherapy and Cure, was voiced by Elaine C Smith. Sara mentors fledgling writers and has sat on the board of several writers’ organisations. She will talk about fostering creativity and bringing a more diverse eye to where we come from. She says that “a good historical novel is a time machine” and offers us the opportunity ”to take that trip together”.
Biography
Award-winning and best-selling author Sara Sheridan has written more than 20 books. Truth or Dare, her first novel, won the Scottish Library Award and was shortlisted for The Saltire Award. Her latest book On Starlit Seas is inspired by the Cumbrian travel writer, Maria Graham (1785-1842). It is based on Sara’s research in the archive of Graham’s own publisher John Murray, which may be found in the National Library of Scotland. On Starlit Seas, was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Prize.
In 2022, The Fair Botanists set in Edinburgh in 1822, was Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year and was also a season 7 pick for The Queen’s Reading Room. Suffused with the heady aroma of Enlightenment Edinburgh, Sheridan’s vibrant period novel centres on the city’s enticing botanical gardens and two fascinating women who meet there. The Secrets of Blythswood Square set in Glasgow in 1846, excels at weaving real-life historical figures into compelling narratives. This is an evocative historical novel of female empowerment, as two women are drawn together by an inconvenient collection of erotic art. The novel was longlisted for The Saltire Award in 2024.
Taking a lateral view of culture ties to history Sara is an activist, and sometime perfumer, who in 2019 remapped Scotland according to women’s history. Her brilliant landmark non-fiction atlas for Historic Environment Scotland Where are the Women? A Guide to an Imagined Scotland was one of the David Hume Institute’s Books of the year 2019. In it she imagined several monuments to Scotland’s accused witches alongside commemorating over 1600 mostly-forgotten Scottish women.
