James Calum Campbell

I was born in Glasgow.  I read English Lang & Lit at the University of Glasgow.  I always wanted to write, but I hit writer's block and realised I needed to change direction and accrue some life experience.  I became a medical student in the University of Edinburgh, and disappeared for 40 years.  Like so many junior doctors in the UK today, I went to Australia, and then New Zealand, where I trained as an emergency physician under the auspices of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.  The founding fathers of A.C.E.M. were formidable characters, and they took on the might of the traditional medical Royal Colleges in the fight for emergency medicine's recognition as a specialty in its own right.  It was a very exciting time.

With the turn of the new millennium I came back to Scotland, largely for family reasons, buried myself in a croft in Camustianavaig, Isle of Skye, and wrote a book.  I worked briefly in Broadford Hospital, then moved to Stirlingshire, again for family reasons, and became a rural GP after the fashion of Dr Findlay, or more likely Dr Cameron.  I scribbled away.

In 2014 I was lucky enough to win the Impress Prize for New Writers, and in 2015 Impress published Click, Double-Click.  It's a psychological thriller, all about a troubled Scots-New Zealand emergency physician named Dr Alastair Cameron-Strange - you write about what you know!  Impress asked for a trilogy of the life of the troubled doc, and published The Seven Trials of Cameron-Strange in 2016.  Actually the true title of that book is The Seven Trials of Alastair Cameron-Strange, but I was persuaded the title page would be too crowded.  Too many words, Mozart.  I worked away at Part III of the trilogy.  Impress published something entirely different, a nuclear farce entitled Cobra, in 2021.  Then sadly Impress ceased to trade, but I am delighted to say that Troubador is publishing Part III, The Last Night of the Proms, on April 28th 2024.

Since 2015 I have published a weekly blog usually every Monday (jamescalumcampbell blog).  It usually reflects my interests - medicine, literature, journalism, music, politics, the German language, aviation, fresh air and exercise.

The Last Night of the Proms is currently being copy-edited, and I'm very excited.