Carter Macken writes stories that unfold in haunted cities, where stars shimmer and smoke rises. Being Scottish, but having spent her childhood elsewhere, has left Carter with an odd kind of nostalgia. Her favourite places exist somewhere between what’s imagined and what we remember.

Two of Carter’s great grandfathers were publicans, one in Glasgow and the other in Ireland. Her family have handed down to her a Kodak No.1 pocket camera,  a 1970’s battered paperback edition of Lord of the Rings and a pendant watch worn by five generations before her.

She was raised in the era of renaissance Disney and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.