After graduating with an MA Honours degree in English Language and Literature from the University of St Andrews, Olive Malcolm taught for a number of years, before embarking on a career in public relations. Her first boss, in a busy press office, was the highly acclaimed novelist Terry Pratchett, a demanding an often acerbic taskmaster, from whom she learned a lot about writing. On her retirement, Olive has found time to pursue her passions for poetry, music and Celtic spirituality.
Since moving to a village near Malmesbury, she has become fascinated by the colourful history and singular inhabitants of this ancient borough, an interest which has found expression in her book ‘If Stones Could Speak,’ published in 2024 to coincide with the 1100th anniversary of Athelstan, first King of all England.
Prior to that, she published a collection of poetry entitled ‘Sounds of Iona’ in 2022, inspired by the wild beauty, spirituality and history of that tiny Hebridean island ‘on the edge’ of the British isles where Columba established an abbey in the 6th century, bringing Celtic Christianity to the western isles and mainland of Scotland. In 2020, Olive was a prize winner in the Jack Clemo poetry competition and has had work featured in various publications, including the British Haiku Journal. In 2024, she was awarded first prize in the Sabine Baring Gould short story competition.