Jenni Fagan

Dr Jenni Fagan FRSL (born 1977) is a Scottish novelist and poet. She has published four fiction books including novel The Panopticon,^[1][2] screenplays, eight books of poetry and a memoir, Ootlin. She was named Scottish writer of the year 2016 by The Glasgow Herald. In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.^[3]

Dr Jenni Fagan FRSL
Born	September 1977 (1977-09) (age 47) Scotland
Occupation	Novelist, poet, screenwriter.
Education	BA at University of Greenwich, MA at Royal Holloway, University of London, PhD University of Edinburgh.
Notable works	The Panopticon
Notable awards	The Gordon Burn Prize 2025, Sunday Herald Culture Awards Scottish Author of The Year 2016, Granta Best of Young British Novelist 2013.
Website
jennifagan.com

Early life

Fagan was born in 1977^[4] and grew up in Scotland within the Scottish Local Authority care system.^[5] As a child she was adopted twice but neither placement worked out well.^[6] She spent six years living on a caravan park,^[6][7] and states that while she was a child she moved 26 times.^[4] After leaving the care system, Fagan was homeless for several years, living in homeless accommodation.^[8]

In 2007, she received the Dewar Arts award, which enabled her to attend Norwich School of Art and Design, going on to read for a BA at University of Greenwich, from which she graduated first class. She went on to study for an MA at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she was taught by Andrew Motion.^[9]

Career

With the publication of her first novel in 2013, Fagan was listed by Granta as one of the 2013 Granta Best Young British Novelists.^[10] The Panopticon was well received in the press, with The New York Times describing her writing by saying: "...there is no resisting the tidal rollout of Fagan's imagery. Her prose beats behind your eyelids..."^[11] and also describing Fagan as The Patron Saint of Literary Street Urchins."^[12]

Her second novel, The Sunlight Pilgrims released in 2016, tells the story of a transgender young girl named Stella who lives on a caravan park and is based around the relationships she forms while growing up, set against a backdrop of rural Scotland during a period of freezing climate change. Writer Ben Myers described it as "prose that sparkles from the first page."^[13]

Fagan was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2017 with The Waken.^[14]

Fagan mentors young writers and works with young people, including offenders and those in the prison system. She curated an art exhibition at Tramway in Glasgow entitled Narrative for Koestler Trust in 2017. It showcased artwork by prisoners, young offenders and those in secure psychiatric care from across Scotland.^[15]

In 2017, as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Fagan and four other Scottish writers took part in the Outriders Project, which involved taking road trips across the continent of America with local writers to explore partnerships while writing and blogging throughout the journey. Fagan's journey entailed travelling from the Rust Belt to Silicon Valley where she explored "questions on the nature of truth." She was accompanied by American novelist Bonnie Jo Campbell.^[16] The subsequent novel length poem called Truth was published by Tangerine Press in Autumn 2019.^[17]

It was during a writing residency at Shakespeare and Company, in Paris, she wrote some of the poetry which made up her poetry collection There’s a Witch in the Word Machine.^[18]

She has been Writer in Residence at the University of Edinburgh, Lewisham Hospital's neonatal unit, Norfolk Blind Association, and has collaborated with a women's prison and various youth organisations over many years.^[7] She was a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellow at Grez-sur-Loing for a month in 2018 supported by The Scottish Book Trust. She also curated an exhibition of prisoner's work from all across the UK at The Tramway in Glasgow for the Koestler Trust, in 2017.

She directed her first short film in 2018, a cine-poem about Bangour Village Hospital where she was born. She has also experimented with other media such as sculpture when she created a giant metal scold's bridle onto which she engraved words by women prisoners from the UK and USA, including submissions from women on death row.^[8]

She wrote and directed a short film, Heart of Glass, in 2022 for BBC Four.^[19]

In 2024 she travelled to Wellington, New Zealand, for the inaugural Island to Island exchange.^[20]

Books

Fiction novels

• The Panopticon (2012)
• The Sunlight Pilgrims (2016)
• Luckenbooth (2021)
• Hex (2022)

Non-Fiction

• Ootlin (2023)

Poetry

• Urchin Belle (2009)
• Impilo/The Acid Burn No Face Man (2012) Bottle of Smoke Press
• The Dead Queen of Bohemia: New & Collected Poems (2016)
• There's A Witch in the Word Machine (2018)
• Truth (2019)
• The Bone Library (2022)
• A Swan's Neck on the Butcher's Block (2024)
• Heart of The Spirit (2024)

Awards

• 2013: Waterstones 11 – one of eleven best worldwide debuts in 2013^[21]
• 2013: Named in the Granta list of Best Young British Novelists^[22]
• 2016: Scottish Author of the Year, Sunday Herald Culture Awards, for The Sunlight Pilgrims^[23]
• 2025: Winner, Gordon Burn Prize for Ootlin^[24]