Iona Carroll

Books, readers and writers have always been an important part of the life of Iona Carroll. An Australian from sunny Queensland, Iona’s love of books developed into a career with the Brisbane City Council’s Library Service where she was branch librarian and book buyer for many years. She also worked for two years as a librarian with the Australian Army as well as a short spell with the Wellington Libraries in New Zealand.

In common with many young Australians, Iona left her native land in 1981 bound for Britain. She spent three years in the West of Ireland. The people, landscape and way of life provided her with the inspiration for her novel, Crying Through the Wind.

She married a Scot and the couple made their home in the Scottish Borders.

Iona is actively involved with the local literary scene and has taken part in the annual Borders Book Festival at Melrose. She is a member of the Borders Writers’ Forum and held the position of secretary for seven years. She is also a member of the Society of Authors.

In 2012, Iona set up and tutors a very enthusiastic group of fiction writers – The Kelso Writers’ Workshop http://kelsowritersworkshop.blogspot.co.uk as well as being a co editor of the Scottish Borders Council’s literary magazine, The Eildon Tree, a bi annual publication which is in its twenty-fifth issue.

She is an avid book reviewer, mainly of literary fiction and biographies and her reviews appear regularly in publications such as New Books Magazine and elsewhere. Her many short stories have been published in the UK and Australia in magazines as diverse as Carillon and Studio.

Crying Through the Wind is the first of Iona’s trilogy: The Story of Oisin Kelly. The second novel, Familiar Yet Far was published in 2015. The third book, Homecoming will complete the series.

Iona’s thoughts on the writing life are that, in order to be a writer, one has to be a reader first and to love books. Combine this with observation, imagination and life experiences and a novelist is born.