DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Mairi Hedderwick Illustrator & Author

A graduate of Edinburgh College of Art, Mairi Hedderwick was a teacher before she started illustrating children’s books. As an author and illustrator her most popular character, Katie Morag, was created in 1984.

Katie Morag’s home on the fictional Hebridean island of Struay is not a million sea miles away from her author’s life long association with the Isle of Coll.

In 2013 Katie Morag joined Cbeebies with the successful TV series produced by Move On Up / Struay Films.

Mairi Hedderwick has also written and illustrated many other books for children and adults, all with the backdrop of the Highlands and Islands. She was awarded an Honorary Degree from Stirling University in 2003 in recognition of her outstanding contribution to writing and illustration in Scotland, especially for children.

Her illustrated adult books are An Eye on the Hebrides, which is a record of a six month continous journey through the islands on the west of Scotland. Highland Journey, follows the footsteps of Victorian writer and artist John T Reid; Sea Change, logs the passage of 26ft vintage yacht Anassa from east to west coast Scotland via the Caledonian canal; Shetland Rambles, her latest illustrated personal journey is in tandem with John T Reid once more. The Last Laird of Coll is a memoir of Kenneth Stewart, last laird of Coll.