Award-winning writer and novelist Kerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. She grew up with her single mother and was always on the move. She attended nine primary schools and five secondaries and lived a succession of council estates, B&Bs and caravan parks. This provided her with a keen eye for idiosyncratic behaviour, material for life, and a love of travel. Kerry’s latest book Lowborn, is a memoir of growing up in a working-class home and of her return to the towns she grew up in to find out what being poor really means in Britain today.
Twenty years later, Kerry’s life is unrecognisable. She’s travelled the world. She has a secure home, a loving partner and access to art, music, film and books. But she often finds herself looking over her shoulder, caught somehow between two worlds.
Kerry's Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma won the Scottish First Book Award and Thirst, her second novel, won the prestigious Prix Femina Etranger. She founded the WoMentoring project, which offers free mentoring to underrepresented female writers.
We used a big bottle of Fairy Liquid to clean our hair, bodies, clothes, house and dishes. .....When every day of your life you have been told you have nothing of value to offer, that you are worth nothing to society, can you ever escape that sense of being ‘lowborn’ no matter how far you’ve come?