About - Jill Dobson

Long ago, in the previous century, when I was seventeen, my first novel, The Inheritors, was accepted for publication by a university press branching out into the emerging field of ‘Young Adult’ fiction. The Berlin Wall was still standing and even in Australia, we were (distantly) worried about nuclear apocalypse.

Many cities and countries later, I live in Glasgow, 50 miles down the road from the UK’s ageing nuclear deterrent at Faslane.

In the intervening decades, I published two more books, was dropped by my publisher and accumulated a hard-drive of novels that several agents couldn’t sell.

But I kept writing. I didn’t lose hope, despite periods of intense self-doubt and discouragement. Writing was how I defined myself, and after a promising start—three books with a respected traditional publisher—I felt that I had ‘failed’.

Eventually, I decided to publish independently.

A new version of The Inheritors, rewritten for the 21st century, was released on 1 January 2024. The sequel, The Archives Project, will be published in 2026, the second in a five-part series, The Survivor Covenant.

As well as cerebral dystopian fiction that focuses on character and relationships, I also write contemporary, historical and fantasy fiction. In all my novels, you’ll find protagonists who don’t fit comfortably in the world around them, who are often at odds with the usual expectations, although they don’t fit the ‘rebel’ template either.

(Hello algorithm! I write literary fiction that draws on genre and prioritises character development and story over ‘atmosphere’ or experimental prose. Please let the internet know.)

I also write essays, which you can find on my blog page. I write about writing and publishing (naturally); about solitude and getting older; about urban life; and about my evolving attitude to travel, which as someone who grew up in Australia I never questioned as a vital and necessary pursuit. I also touch on tango, hillwalking, shopping, my ongoing obsession with fitness and the body, and earning a living as someone who repeatedly fell off the career escalator and is now ‘post career’, although nowhere near ‘retirement’, if this possibility even exists for me.

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You can also hear me talking about my writing career and my decision to ‘go indie’ with Howard Lovy on his podcast, one of many inspirational pods produced by the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi). Anyone considering self-publishing should join ALLi or at least look over their extensive free guidance.