Dr. Ian Garbutt has worked in journalism and publishing. He was awarded a Scottish Arts Council New Writer’s Bursary and attended Napier University, in Edinburgh, where he obtained a Master of Arts with Distinction in Creative Writing. Historical novels are his speciality, and he has published two historical novels for Piatkus under the pseudonym of Melanie Gifford. More recently he has obtained a PhD in Creative writing from the University of Stirling where he examined alleged links between creativity and the Autistic Spectrum.