Royal Literary Fund Fellow

Improve your academic writing by working with a Fellow from the Royal Literary Fund.

Whatever your subject or level of study, the Royal Literary Fund Fellows offer one-to-one practical sessions to help you improve your writing.

Booking an appointment

To book an appointment, use the table below to choose a location and day of the week that work best for you, and then contact the Fellow directly using the email address provided:

Location	Day of week	Fellow	Contact email
Main Library	Monday	Mary Paulson-Ellis	Mary.Paulson-Ellis@rlfeducation.org.uk
Main Library	Tuesday	Mary Paulson-Ellis	Mary.Paulson-Ellis@rlfeducation.org.uk
Murray Library, King's Buildings	Wednesday	Lesly Glaister	Lesley.Glaister@rlfeducation.org.uk
Main Library	Thursday	Lucy Ribchester	Lucy.Ribchester@rlfeducation.org.uk
Main Library	Friday	Lucy Ribchester	Lucy.Ribchester@rlfeducation.org.uk

What we offer

Sessions are tailored to your needs: this could mean support with planning and structure, advice on clarity and working to a word limit, help with editing, grammar and punctuation, or any other issue you want to bring.

All academic writing is covered including essays, reports, theses, dissertations, book chapters, posters etc. Advice is based on your writing and tailored to your needs and aims.

Please note that due to funding restrictions this service is only available to students in the UK (you cannot have an online session when you are abroad).

This service is:

Free
Confidential
One-to-one

Each session lasts 50 minutes.

What we don't do:

proof-read your work
teach English as a second language
provide specialist support for specific learning disabilities

Learn more: RLF Fellowship Scheme

Our RLF Fellows in 2024-2025

Lesley Glaister

Lesley Glaister is a novelist, poet, playwright and teacher of creative writing. She’s published seventeen novels, most recently Blasted Things and A Particular Man. Her writing contains elements of historical, psychological and suspense fiction, though it resists categorisation into one genre. Often darkly funny, the novels are concerned most of all with voice, character, and the resilience of the human spirit.

For her first novel, Honour Thy Father, Lesley won both a Somerset Maugham and a Betty Trask Award. Little Egypt was awarded a Jerwood Unbound Prize, and her work has been long and shortlisted for several major prizes.

She has had several residencies including at the Cheltenham Literature Festival and at the University of Otago in New Zealand. She was writer in Residence at the University of Edinburgh between 2008 and 2011.

Lesley’s most recent post was at the University of St Andrews where she taught Creative Writing. She mentors novelists and teaches on residential, or more recently online, writing courses, including The Arvon Foundation and the Mslexia Novel School. Lesley is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

For more information about Lesley, please visit her website:

Lesley Glaister homepage

Mary Paulson-Ellis

Mary Paulson-Ellis is an award-winning novelist writing across the genres of crime, historical and literary fiction. Her critically acclaimed debut, The Other Mrs Walker was a Times bestseller and Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year. The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing was longlisted for the McIlvanney prize for best Scottish crime novel and a Historical Writers Association Gold Crown.

In 2023 Mary was awarded the Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship by Edinburgh City of Literature Trust to write a multilayered novel about her home city of Edinburgh. Author Liz Jensen describes her as having ‘the verve and panache of a true storyteller’.

Mary’s short fiction and nonfiction have featured in The Guardian, various anthologies and on BBC Radio 4. In 2019 Val McDermid selected her as one of ten exciting LGBTQ+ writers working today.

Mary has been a writing mentor, workshop leader, tutor and writer-in-residence for many organisations including the National Centre for Writing, the National Galleries of Scotland and the Edinburgh International Festival. She regularly reviews what’s current in the arts for BBC Radio Scotland. As a committee member for the Society of Authors in Scotland, Mary believes in solidarity and connection amongst authors everywhere.

For more information about Mary, please visit her website:

Mary Paulson-Ellis homepage

Lucy Ribchester

Lucy Ribchester is a novelist, short story writer and journalist based in Edinburgh. She has written three historical crime fiction novels under her own name, and two contemporary thrillers as Elle Connel. Her first novel, The Hourglass Factory, was longlisted for the Historical Writers Association Debut crown, picked by Val McDermid for her New Blood panel at Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival, and selected by Waterstones’ Edinburgh branches as their Book of the Year. Her most recent novel, Murder Ballad, is set in Edinburgh’s 18^th century music scene and explores the relationship between a street ballad singer and a female classical composer.

Lucy has been awarded a Scottish Book Trust New Writers award and a Robert Louis Stevenson fellowship. Her short stories have been shortlisted for the Costa Short Story award and Manchester Fiction prize, and broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

Lucy also writes regularly for The List magazine, covering dance, drag, books and children’s theatre. She is a regular leader of creative writing workshops, and has led sessions in schools, libraries, community groups and prisons. Her particular passion is developing the confidence and skills of emerging readers and writers.

For more information about Lucy, please visit her website:

Lucy Ribchester homepage

BSL users

Contact us through an online sign language interpreter

British Sign Language (BSL) users can contact the University of Edinburgh via Contact Scotland BSL, the online British Sign Language video relay interpreting service.

Find out more on the Contact Scotland BSL website

Contact Scotland BSL - contact us through a sign language interpreter