I was born and brought up in Buckie, a fishing town on the Moray Firth coast of north-east Scotland.

On my mother's side the family were involved in fishing and associated trade: my maternal grandfather and great-grandfather were businessmen who thrived in the days of the great herring fishery which went on all round the coast of Britain.

My father's family had fishing connections of a different kind — his father was employed in the salmon fishery at the mouth of the Spey, and he had been brought up in the hamlet of Tugnet, before becoming a doctor.

After schooling locally and at Aberdeen University I went to North America for close to 18 years: teaching at the University of Victoria and elsewhere on the Pacific north-west coast of Canada, and taking a doctorate on Roethke at Northwestern University while living in Chicago.

My first book was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 1978, and still seems to be in print. Lines of communication are often north and south in that part of the world, and I spent time in San Francisco on a number of occasions: the first time in 1967, and also in the 70s and early 80s.

Came back to Scotland in 1984, aiming to spend two years, then return to Canada. Still here: just the way things worked out. Like it, and love the people I'm with. Live in Glasgow, after seven years in Edinburgh. More to come.