Mairi Kidd graduated with a First in Celtic Studies from the University of Edinburgh and has worked in books ever since. Her novel The Specimens - a retelling of the 1828 crimes of Burke and Hare - was Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month and the short stories from her collection We Are All Witches formed the basis for the award-winning 'Heal and Harrow' project. Her novel Poor Creatures is an immersive reimagining of the young Mary Shelley before she became the author of Frankenstein, and Newes of Witches is a tale of courage and women quietly resisting the systems built to break them, set against the backdrop the 17th-century witch hunts. She lives by the sea in Edinburgh with her illustrator husband and their rescue cat.