Alan Taylor has been a journalist for over 30 years. He was deputy and managing editor at the Scotsman, and for the last 15 years has been Writer-at-Large for the Sunday Herald. He has contributed to numerous publications, including The TLS, The New Yorker and The Melbourne Age, and edited three acclaimed anthologies - The Assassin's Cloak (2000), The Secret Annexe (2004) and The Country Dairies (2009).