Kirsty Gunn is a novelist and writer of short stories. Her stories include “Rain”, which led to the 2001 film of the same name, and her novel The Boy and the Sea won the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year award in 2007. Her 2012 novel The Big Music won the Book of the Year in the 2013 New Zealand Post Book Awards. She is professor of writing practice at the University of Dundee.