About Janice Galloway

Janice Galloway was born in Ayrshire in 1955. Her first novel, THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING (Vintage), now widely regarded as a contemporary Scottish classic, was published in 1991. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel, Scottish First Book, Italia Premio Acerbi and Aer Lingus Awards, and won the MIND/Allen Lane Book of the Year. Her second novel was FOREIGN PARTS (Vintage, 1995), which won the McVitie’s Prize. CLARA (Vintage), a fictionalised account of the life of Clara Schumann, was published in 2003 and won the Saltire Book of the Year.

BLOOD and WHERE YOU FIND IT, two collections of short stories, first published in 1991 and 1996 respectively, later became COLLECTED SHORT STORIES (Vintage) in 2009. Janice also wrote two collaborative books of short fiction and poetry with sculptor Anne Bevan, and libretti, poems and a play. Prizes and awards include The American Academy of Arts and Letters EM Forster Award, and the Creative Scotland Award. She has written and presented three radio series for BBC Scotland and has been a guest on several BBC Radio 3 shows. 

Janice is the author of two works of ‘anti-memoir’: THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME (Granta, 2010), was shortlisted for The Biographer’s Club First Book and won Scottish non-fiction Book of the Year; ALL MADE UP (Granta, 2011) won the SMIT Book of the Year and a Creative Scotland Award.

Her latest book, JELLYFISH (Granta, 2019), is a short story collection exploring sex and sexuality, parenthood, relationships, the connections between generations, death, ambition and loss.

Praise for THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING

‘I wish everyone would read THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING by Janice Galloway. Galloway writes with an unflinching intimacy in this tale of a woman mourning the death of her married lover.’ – Douglas Stuart (author of SHUGGIE BAIN), New York Times

‘Resembles Tristram Shandy as rewritten by Sylvia Plath.’ – The New York Times

‘A totally authentic portrayal of both the numbness and the frantic overthinking when you’re going through grief. There are lots of unconventional elements – the pages peppered with obsessive lists, different fonts, italicised shards of memory, commercial slogans, trash mag gossip and horoscopes – but it never feels heavy-handed. It brilliantly, agonisingly captures the indifference of a modern world eating up Joy as she struggles to cope with the loss of her partner.’ – Richard Milward, The New Statesman