Scottish author Mairi Craw graduated with an MA in English Literature and History of Fine Art from Glasgow University. She worked for BBC World Service in London before starting her own publicity and design business which she ran from home for ten years.
Mairi began her writing career on a whim and quickly discovered she had a unique way with words, a passion for story-telling and a limitless imagination. She has never studied creative writing and plans nothing in advance. The novels unfold as she writes, and characters introduce themselves along the way. This allows Mairi an enormous amount of freedom and gives her writing a freshness and immediacy that is often hard to find in an overcrowded literary world. As far as she is concerned, there are no rules and there are endless avenues to be explored.
Beyond the Hedge, the first of a trilogy of reality-based fantasy novels, was inspired by her childhood in the port of Irvine on the south-west coast of Scotland. It was written while she was living in the English county of Dorset with her family and a host of animals, many of whom feature in her work.
In 2007, Mairi moved to the Pyrénées-Orientales in southern France, where she wrote the sequel, Between Two Worlds, which continues the adventures of Sandy Henderson and her wildly eccentric fairy friends in Irvine and the parallel Scottish fairy world of Sylvania.
"I realised I'd found an idyllic place to live when I chanced upon Taurinya which nestles in the foothills of Le Canigou, the sacred mountain of the Catalans. It's a magical setting and so inspirational; it felt preordained that I should live in this mystical place. There's a beautiful rocky river at the foot of the village which reminds me of Scotland. It's an ideal spot to write fantasy fiction about elves and fairies.
The cover images for both novels are Mairi’s own work, and she has already embarked on a third novel in the series.
Endorsement for Beyond the Hedge and Between Two Worlds
By the renowned Scottish historian A. J. Morton
“Once I picked them up, I could hardly put them down. Beyond the Hedge is a beautifully written volume that will appeal to all ages and fans of all genres. The sequel, Between Two Worlds, makes this one of the most fantastically magical literary epics of the 21st century. If there was ever a book series that contained all the magic and fantasy of Alice in Wonderland, the Wizard of Oz, the Wind in the Willows, the Never Ending Story and even Tolkien’s The Hobbit, this has to be it. Set in the multiplicitous Ancient Royal Burgh of Irvine, a modern New Town and medieval burgh recently identified by Morton Research Labs as the ancient “Lost Capital” of Scotland, Beyond the Hedge and Between Two Worlds will transport you to a time and a place where Alice and Dorothy would feel very much at home, but where Kenneth Grahame’s ever-anxious Mole would be absolutely terrified. Two truly fantastic books.”
A.J.Morton
Founder & Director
Morton Research Labs
Investigative History Service
About A.J.Morton
Three-time award nominee (the 2012 North Ayrshire Citizen of the Year Award, the 2012 Arts & Culture Award, the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award 2013), A.J.Morton is a newspaper columnist, investigative researcher and essayist specializing in the forgotten history of Scotland and the tourist regeneration of towns and villages suffering high levels of unemployment and child poverty. A keen adventurer and one-time “code-cracker”, A.J.Morton’s research has featured in The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Sunday Times, the Scotsman, and BBC Radio. His work has also been published in peer-review, in international magazines and by the Irvine Times.
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You can contact Mairi at Mairi@mairicraw.com