Photo: Kim Ayres
Karen Campbell
Agent: Juliet Pickering
Assistant: Finlay Charlesworth
Biography: Karen Campbell is originally from Glasgow, but now lives in south west Scotland. She graduated with distinction from Glasgow University’s Creative Writing Masters, and won an SAC New Writers Award and a Creative Scotland Bursary. Before turning to writing, she was a police officer in Glasgow, then press officer with Glasgow City Council. She also tutors in creative writing and was Writer in Residence at Dumfries & Galloway Council during the Covid pandemic.
Her first four novels focus on life behind the police uniform. This disconnect between what we see on the surface and the reality underneath runs through much of her work, with Karen going on to write novels such as This Is Where I Am (Bloomsbury 2013), which was a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime. Her eighth novel Paper Cup (Canongate 2022) was a Waterstone’s Scottish Book of the Month and won the 2023 Blairgowrie Bookmark Prize, while her new novel This Bright Life is out with Canongate in Spring 2025. Karen’s appeared on Radio 4 Women’s Hour, Radio 3’s The Verb, Radio Scotland and BBC television’s Big Scottish Book Club.
THIS BRIGHT LIFE
Contemporary, 304 pages, Canongate, March 2025
Gerard is twelve. He hates his name, but loves flying round the streets of Glasgow on his bike, or mucking about with his gang, the Broncos. He's a bright kid, but trouble seems to follow him. No one really knows what it's like at home for Gerard; he's used to carrying a lot on his small shoulders.
Gerard doesn't always make good decisions. And on one April morning, in the blink of an eye, he makes a very bad one - one that will upend his whole world.
Now, he faces a bewildering stream of concerned adults clutching files, unfamiliar streets to navigate, a strange bed to sleep in, and the very real chance he won't see his wee brother and sister again.
Heartbreaking and yet brimful of humour, compassion and hope, THIS BRIGHT LIFE is a story about messy lives, second chances and the many hands it takes to build a boy.
PAPER CUP
Contemporary, 336 pages, Canongate, June 2022
What if going back means you could begin again?
Rocked by a terrible accident, homeless Kelly needs to escape the city streets of Glasgow. Maybe she doesn't believe in serendipity, but a rare moment of kindness and a lost ring conspire to call her home. As Kelly vows to reunite the lost ring with its owner, she must return to the small town she fled so many years ago.
On her journey from Glasgow to the south-west tip of Scotland, Kelly encounters ancient pilgrim routes, hostile humans, hippies, book lovers and a friendly dog, as memories stir and the people she thought she'd left behind forever move closer with every step.
Full of compassion and hope, Paper Cup is a novel about how easy it can be to fall through the cracks, and what it takes to turn around a life that has run off course.
THE SOUND OF THE HOURS
Historical, 461 pages, Bloomsbury, July 2019
Divided by loyalties, brought together by war
September, 1943. Tuscany, Italy.
In the hilltop town of Barga, everyone holds their breath. Even the bells fall silent. Everything Vittoria Guidi knows and loves is at risk. German troops occupy the mountains around her home, as America's Buffalo Soldiers prepare to invade. As Vittoria's country is torn in two, so is her conscience. Should she side with her Scots-Italian father or her Fascist mother? Should she do what she is told – or what she believes in?
Frank Chapel, a young, black American soldier fighting with the Buffalo soldiers for a country that refuses him the vote, is unlike anyone Vittoria has ever met. In the chaos, they find each other – but can their growing love overcome prejudice and war?
RISE
Literary, 401 pages, Bloomsbury, March 2015
Justine is running for her life. Escaping a city and a man who between them have almost broken her she heads north to the mountains and the valleys of the Highlands. She is looking for somewhere to hide.
Michael and Hannah are also running. With their two sons and their tattered marriage they have come to the village of Kilmacarra. They are looking for somewhere they can once again call home.
In a place of standing stones – an ancient landscape in a country on the brink of change – a shocking accident causes their lives to intertwine. Tangled together in threads of guilt and love, with Scotland rushing towards a referendum and the community around them fracturing, each must question where they truly belong.
And, as the ground beneath their feet begins to give up its secrets, and the darkness Justine fled grows close, each must also find a way to face their ghosts.