Gill Arbuthnott author page

Gill Arbuthnott biography

Gill Arbuthnott grew up in Edinburgh and attended James Gillespie’s High School. She studied Zoology at St Andrews University, began PhD research at Southampton University and then became a biology teacher. She had been writing secretly since she was ten, and her family only learned about it when her first book was accepted by a publisher. She is a former biology teacher who has written fiction, non-fiction and picture books for children and young adults.

Her early fantasy novels include The Chaos Clock (2003), The Chaos Quest (2004) and Winterbringers (2005). She later wrote The Keepers’ Tattoo (2009), the historical fantasy Beneath (2014), the picture book Lost at the Zoo (2012) and science titles including What Makes You You? (2013), A Beginner’s Guide to Electricity and Magnetism (2016) and Your Guide to the Periodic Table (2016). Her history writing for younger readers includes A Secret Diary of the First World War, published on 5 July 2018 as the first book in the Fact-tastic Stories from Scotland’s History series, and The Amazing Life of Mary, Queen of Scots, published on 31 May 2022.

Her non-fiction often explains complex science for younger readers in an accessible way, and A Secret Diary of the First World War mixes fiction with timelines, letters, diagrams and illustrations inspired by the real-life diary of a Scottish boy soldier. The Amazing Life of Mary, Queen of Scots continued that same history series in 2022.