Science And Fiction

When chronic illness changed Lorraine Wilson's life, she turned to her other passion, writing fiction, to find a new way of living

- DAWN GEDDES

CONSERVATION scientist turned novelist Lorraine Wilson has a beautiful way with words.

Based on Scotland's East Coast, the author's stunning books - which include This Is Our Undoing and The Way The Light Bends are greatly influenced by folklore and the wilderness.

Her latest novel, Mother Sea - which tells the haunting story of an island community - features themes of both climate change and grief, and Lorraine explained more about her career and how her work as a scientist shapes her words.

The author turned her hand to writing after being diagnosed with a chronic illness.

"Science was such a big part of my identity, so to lose that was really quite difficult and yet I managed to find this whole other community and this whole other sense of myself. I feel very lucky to have found writing," she says.

"I've always loved books and enjoyed writing poetry for myself, but it was always private, cathartic stuff. I was always completely focused on my work as a scientist.

"Being a conservation researcher is very absorbing and it doesn't leave much spare time. It was only when I got sick, and I had to take a step back from the science, that I knew I needed something to give me a sense of focus and direction.

"Writing felt like an obvious thing to try, although it probably doesn't sound obvious - leaping from science to fiction! But because I'm such a bookworm, it just felt like a very natural step for me. I feel like I got really lucky! I really fell in love with it."

Lorraine's career as a scientist saw her working in behavioural conservation in various parts of the world, studying different groups of animals. And she experienced one terrifying incident while studying for her PhD, which saw her catching bubonic plague.

"I was in Costa Rica at the time and I was living on a research station in the rainforest that was quite far from the nearest medical help.