Brian Morton was born in Paisley and raised in Argyll on the Clyde coast. He studied English and pure maths at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a First in 1972. He did PhD research at the University of East Anglia; taught there, at the University of Tromso in Norway, University of Pau in France, and at other institutions. He spent ten years at the Times Higher Education Supplement as features, then literary editor, with secondments to the Times and Sunday Times. Freelance from 1992. Presented jazz and classical music on BBC Radio 3, 1988 to 2007. Returned to Scotland, 1994. Presented many programmes on BBC Scotland, including The Usual Suspects which became the Brian Morton Show in 1998 and ran daily, 48 weeks a year, until 2002. Left the BBC in disgust and returned to freelance writing and crofting on the West of Scotland, first near Dunoon, now in Kintyre, within view of his ancestral Ireland. Married to photographer and former broadcaster Sarah MacDonald. Lots of children, strangely spaced out with seven years between each of the younger ones. Plays saxophone still; not like Bird, but to the birds.