Gillean McDougall’s novel, The Legacy of Gabriel Thorne, was shortlisted for the inaugural Jenny Brown Associates Debut Writers Over 50 Award.

Applefields Asylum in 1912 is the unlikely setting for an affair between doctor and patient. Generations later the dark truth starts to spill from the walls of a Glasgow house when a young archivist discovers hidden secrets. Gillean’s novel is inspired by her research into the archives of the Gartnavel Royal Asylum.

Gillean McDougall worked in classical music and broadcasting before completing the MLitt with Distinction and the Doctor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. Her PhD thesis, A Year to Find My Father, was shortlisted for the Mslexia Memoir Prize in 2021. She’s interested in writing on medical humanities and health archives and is editor of the collaborative creative projects Honest Error (on Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald), Writing the Asylum (on Gartnavel Royal Asylum) and the prescription (with the collections at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow).

Gillean’s poetry and short fiction has been published in print and online, in New Writing Scotland, From Glasgow to Saturn, Shetland Create, Tales from a Cancelled Country, Home Ground (Glasgow Life’s ‘City Read’ 2017), Stories from Home, the polyphony (conversations across the medical humanities) and PhD Women Scotland. Gillean lives in Glasgow.

Gillean’s Twitter/X: @gilleanmcd
Gillean’s Instagram: @gilleanmcd

Gillean is represented at Jenny Brown Associates by Jenny Brown. For all enquiries contact jenny@jennybrownassociates.com