Authors

When I was at primary school I was definitely the best tree-climber in the school, but probably one of the worst readers too. I avoided books. There were so many trees where I grew up that I didn’t really have time for reading. But I soon realized that tree-climbing wasn’t going to turn out to be a proper job, no matter how good I was at it, and my friend gave me a copy of The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall. It was this book that instantly made me want to become a writer.


I’ve now written several award-winning books for teenagers and young people including The Runner, Malarkey, and Ostrich Boys. Recently, I had the fantastic experience of being the Scottish Book Trust’s first ever Virtual Writer in Residence. I live in Edinburgh with my girlfriend and our parrot, and we have some brilliant trees very close by...


Visit Keith’s own website at www.keith-gray.com


An extract from Red-Handed By Keith Gray
 

We were marched into the Head’s office, lined up in front of his desk and warned not to move a muscle, not to make a sound. Matty Mitchell, Gary Bowers and me. We weren’t friends, we were suspects.
   When the Head burst in he looked like a muzzled crocodile – desperate to bite. He glared at us over the top of his glasses. ‘Disgusting,’ he told us. ‘I’m appalled. Do you hear me?’
   We fidgeted, looked at our feet.
   I wasn’t sure if he’d only been told about the graffiti, or had actually gone to the castle to see it with his own eyes. Sprayed in bright red paint at the bottom of the Lang Steps, and on the outside wall of St Margaret’s Chapel, and even along the fat barrel of Mons Meg, were the worst swear words imaginable. In huge letters. Someone had covered Edinburgh Castle in the kind of language that would make your grandmother shrivel.

Read the full story in Our City, available from Polygon in November 2008.