George Gunn was born in Thurso in 1956 where he still lives. He has been a deep-sea fisherman, a driller for oil in the North Sea and a journalist - he contributes to local and national press, the Scottish Review, and sends a fortnightly column, ‘From The Pictish Navy’, to the John O Groat Journal. He has been Writer-in-Residence with both Banff and Buchan District Council and Orkney Islands Council. He is well known as a playwright with some twenty professional productions to date. From 1992 to 2010 he was Artistic Director of Grey Coast Theatre Company, which he co-founded; he also tutors in drama at North Highland College.

George Gunn has produced several series for BBC Radio Scotland and Radio 4, and his poems, reviews and essays appear in magazines and newspapers. He has published a number of pamphlets and small collections over the years, including Black Fish (Scotia Review, 2004), Winter Barley (Chapman, 2005) and The Atlantic Forest (Two Ravens Press, 2008).