Hello and welcome to my website! I was born in Glasgow and currently live near the Pentland Hills in Edinburgh, which I believe is the grandest place on earth – aside from, ahem, the climate.

Aneko Campbell is my pen name as I like to keep my therapy work separate from my writing. In a previous incarnation, my short stories have been shortlisted and highly commended in competitions and featured in a variety of places in the UK and overseas. Among others, publications include Litro Magazine, Bravado Literary Journal (NZ), the New Writer, Fish Anthology, Leaf Books Anthology, Literary Mama, Glasgow Herald, Cutting Teeth and the Quiet Feather, while interviews and reviews have been published in Race Today and City Limits.

‘New York City 1981’ by Aneko Campbell was a surprise – an undoing of all the clichés surrounding the Big Apple. From cockroaches to beggars, creepy pick-ups, drugs and bigotry, a patronising top author – a perfect anti-travelogue describing the New Yawk of 1981. I enjoyed this piece, its unflinching bursting of the idealist’s bubbles, really well-written. 

Vanessa Gebbie, Fish Anthology judge. 

I have an MPhil in Writing from the University of South Wales, formerly the University of Glamorgan, and currently working on a collection of stories and my third novel, A Fine Weave. It is a vivid account of a female murderer who escapes the noose to go on to reinvent herself in 1910 New York. It was a time and place of tremendous upheaval: horse-drawn carriages competing with trolleys and early automobiles for space, the proliferation of dance halls and rise of the movies belying the reality of child labour and poverty. In the midst of this conflicting world, carrying a dark secret, a woman is determined to reinvent herself, but to survive, first she must confront her enemies. It’s interesting writing about someone I don’t particularly like, although I certainly admire her.

My work has been described as inventive, comic and unmoralising. Characters frequently have difficulty in connecting with each other and end up fatally misinterpreting those around them. Things often go woefully wrong and a great deal of mischief ensues – see The Trouble with Mortals and On the Rocks.

I’ve had the good fortune to learn from several fine writers, such as dear friends and fellow writers, Maria Donovan and Laura Hird. Others are: Sean Ennis, Vanessa Gebbie, A.L. Kennedy, Christopher Meredith and Brian McCabe. My thanks also to those in the workshops and writing groups I have attended. Writers I admire include: Amy Bloom, Jonathan Franzen, Patricia Highsmith, Henry James, Tove Jansson, Miranda July, Ian McEwan, Lorrie Moore, Haruki Murakami, David Nicholls, George Saunders, Carol Shields, and lots, lots, more.

I hope you enjoy reading my stories. Do let me know if you have any comments or queries.

‘Ah, the Rolls-Royce of typewriters,’ grunted the man in the repair shop, his gnarled fingers stroking the Hermes. It was fitting that you, companion of my younger self, should be thus appreciated. The nights I hunched over you in a gauze of cigarette smoke, muttering while trying to pin down some thought, I had no need for music; you supplied the rhythm, your proud carriage all the swing I wanted, along with the clackety-clack and ding of your bell.

Like any friendship, there were testing times – those sticking keys, faulty ribbons and blurred print could be hard to take. You were impervious to the curses rained upon you. I forgive you and hope that you can forgive me.

Hermes: Messenger of the gods. Thank you for delivering my undergrad work, reviews and interviews. Dear friend, may you never end up on eBay.