Fiona Erskine

Engineer. Writer. Swimmer.

About me

Engineer by day, writer by night.

In my day job, I’ve turned rock into fertilizer, recovered and recycled precious metals, brought medicines to market, made amazing new polymers,  exported electricity, and directed international construction projects.

I’ve written about my first job in a Leith fertiliser factory in Phosphate Rocks: A Death In Ten Objects.

Losing Control, my latest book, is set in Teesside and was published November 2024

Work means travel, and I never leave home without a book or twelve.

I love a good thriller, but where are the female action heroes?  Powerful, intelligent, honourable, compassionate women who get things done. Why aren’t they out there, solving mysteries and saving the world?  Where is the female Bourne, Reacher, MacGuyver or Bond? Well, I got sick of wondering and hoping, and decided to write the stories that I wanted to read.

Meet Dr Jaq Silver. She blows things up to keep people safe. Her adventures are available from all good bookshops and on-line.

I’m interested in white collar crime, in the scientific and technological choices that are made for us without our knowledge. I’m fascinated by industrial disasters and passionate about environmental justice.

I write about the road less travelled.

Fiona Erskine


The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 


Sunny southern sojourn with friends and family and a stonkingly good book. London looking stunning!


In Houston for the day job, I went back to visit my old house and primary school from when my dad had a sabbatical at Rice University. Fleming park is much smaller than I remember but the fire ants are still there! Highlight was a full Tex-Mex with Theresa and Bhopal expert Kenneth Bloch - plans afoot for a new book.


I swam 24km in 5 days. Hard work?

Try tuna canning, salt drying or sulphur mining...

https://fionaerskine.substack.com/p/sulphur-and-salt


Goodbye #egadiislands and thank you @swimtrek for an amazing week - 24 kilometres with wonderful guides, fellow swimmers and multicoloured fishes!


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The iGhetti arrive in Teesside
#theendofeverything #BookerPrize
Man finds 'massive thing' on beach and says it has been in sea for a century

Good morning.

You are cordially invited on Thursday 19th November where Hetha will be

Interviewing (Interrogating) me at

The Bookcorner in Halifax as we launch

Bluemoose Books - Hebden to Hollywood - 20 years of Independent publishing.

@yorkshirepost
@BBCLookNorth

Thank you @AniaJeruc for your sensitive and moving #Violetta in La Traviata - not a dry eye in the house and the standing ovation so well deserved!
Amazing production! @goteborgsoperan

Congratulations to Carole Cadwalladr, @carolecadwalla, who together with colleagues first revealed this story.

Off to the printers.

Bluemoose Books - Hebden to Hollywood - 20 years of Independent publishing.

Re-mortgaging the house, Lit prizes, One Book Bookshop, Dukes, Boilers, Les Dawson, Eric the Literary hound, Roast potatoes, Julia Roberts & TV shows.

@thebookseller
@guardian

The perfect book for a wet Keswick day. Thank you #johnlawton for #HammertoFall @GrovePressUK
Next TV slow horses?

Looking forward to this!

https://amzn.eu/d/0fA8SkeF

More than 30 writers set to star in first-ever Hartlepool Author Showcase https://www.hartlepool.gov.uk/news/article/334/more-than-30-writers-set-to-star-in-first-ever-hartlepool-author-showcase

Great to see Ravenglass in @Annecdotist's blog post: Page-turning historical fiction from indie publishers with attitude 🤩 🙏🏻
@northodoxpress

Good morning.

If you are able

Please support your local bookshops.

@thebookseller
@BAbooksellers

Special 99p summer cocktail offer
‘Fast-paced, roller-coaster ride… The action-packed storyline, just the right side of bonkers, roams from Lisbon to England to the steamy depths of the Brazilian jungle...’ - Financial Times, best summer books of 2022
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chemical-Cocktail-Silver-Thrillers-Book-ebook/dp/B0FG8X59MT

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All my books