Short bio
Kirsteen Bell writes from a croft in Lochaber on humans and nature. She can also be found in amongst the shelves at The Highland Bookshop, and at Moniack Mhor, Scotland’s Creative Writing Centre, where she Highland Book Prize Co-ordinator.
Long bio
Kirsteen Bell is a Scottish writer of narrative non-fiction and sometimes poetry. All her words are gathered from the croft in Lochaber where she lives, and the surrounding Scottish Highlands.
She writes a monthly ‘Wild Words’ column for the Lochaber Times and a bimonthly column for Caught by the River with Annie Worsley, entitled ‘Croft, Coast and Hill: Letters from the Northwest Highlands’. Her writing and reviews can also be found in Paperboats, Caught by the River, The Guardian Country Diary, Gutter, Northwords Now, Northern Scotland Journal, Imagined Spaces, The Nature Library, The Selkie Anthology: The Same Havoc, Stravaig: Journal of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, and The Oban Times.
Kirsteen has a BAH Literature from the University of the Highlands & Islands (UHI) and a PgDip Sustainable Rural Development, also from UHI. Her work has been shortlisted for the Fresher Writing Prize for Poetry, and in 2020 she received the Katharine Stewart Award from Moniack Mhor, Scotland’s Creative Writing Centre.
Since 2021, Kirsteen has been employed at Moniack Mhor, where she is Highland Book Prize Co-ordinator. More recently, she has been dabbling in the art of bookselling at The Highland Bookshop. She loves talking to people about books and is a regular event chair for venues and festivals including The Highland Bookshop, the Highland Book Prize, and Nairn Book and Arts Festival.
Kirsteen Bell 