Meg Bateman

Who is Meg Bateman?

Vivienne Margaret 'Meg' Bateman is a Scottish academic, poet and short story writer.

Bateman was born in Edinburgh. She studied Celtic at Aberdeen University and completed a PhD in medieval Scottish Gaelic language religious poetry. She then went on to teach Scottish Gaelic at the Universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Her Scottish Gaelic poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies such as Other Tongues and Twenty of the Best. She has also translated Gaelic poetry into English in An Anthology of Scottish Women Poets and The Harp's Cry. Her 1997 collection Aotromachd agus dàin eile/Lightness and other poems - her first to have facing English translations - movingly deals with the fragility of love and human relationships. She lectures at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, on Skye, and is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at St Andrews University. In 2011, Bateman's first ever published Scottish Gaelic short story, entitled Chanadh gun d'chur i às dha, appeared in the short story collection Saorsa published by CLÀR as part of the Ùr-sgeul series of new Scottish Gaelic fiction.