Welcome!

Lindz McLeod is a queer, working-class, Scottish writer and editor who dabbles in the surreal. 

She was the Competition Secretary of the Edinburgh Writers' Club from 2019-2023, and was elected as the Club President in 2023. She is a fiction reader for both the Edinburgh Flash Fiction Awards and Edinburgh Short Story Awards, as well as part of the judging panel for the 2023 Parsec competition and the judge for the December 2023 Elegant Literature competition. Lindz is an experienced freelance editor and writing coach for both fiction and non-fiction, as well as an experienced workshop host. 

Lindz is a Rogue Mentor to six talented prose writers as well as one talented playwright via We Are Here. Additionally, she is a full member of the SFWA, the Scottish Writers Association, and the Federation of Writers (Scotland). She has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart prize multiple times, as well as for Best Small Fictions. 

In 2019, Lindz was awarded a Masters in Creative Writing from the Open University. In 2023, she began a PhD in Creative Writing with Manchester Metropolitan University—her thesis centers around vision and intimacy in literature, with a focus on broadening accessibility. Her work has been taught in schools, universities, and has been adapted for avant-garde opera. She writes equally comfortably in English and Scots, and has recently started teaching herself Gaelic. She very rarely sleeps.

In 2022, her flash story 'Cake By The Ocean' was nominated for the annual Best Small Fictions anthology. In 2023 her flash story 'Upper Bout' was longlisted for the Wigleaf Top Fifty. Her co-written story 'Shark Facts My Grandma Told Me' was mentioned on the Book Riot article Halloween Short Fiction: 9 Short Stories to Get You Ready for Spooky Season, where it was called "a masterclass in thriller writing — mounting tension, unabashed horror, and a killer twist at the end." Her 2023 story "The Immortal Game", a noir thriller told in chess moves, was voted one of the Apex Community Recommended Reads 2023, with reader Ryan Cole describing it as "one I love and think about often... captivating and fun".

Lindz's short story collection, Turducken (Spaceboy Books, 2023) showcases the finest of her short work and spans a wide range of genres from literary to comedy to horror; Turducken was the recipient of the 2023 Brave New Weird award for best collection from Tenebrous Press. 

Her erotic horror reverse-vampires novella, Sunbathers, was published in 2024 by Hedone Books. Her debut romance novel, The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet, will be published by Harlequin in Spring 2025, and follows a recently-widowed Charlotte Lucas as she pursues a sapphic romance with botanist Mary Bennet. Lindz has also put together a unique collaborative anthology, forthcoming with Stanchion in late 2025, which seeks to showcase collaborative fiction alongside discussions of craft techniques. Additionally, she is currently at work on several film scripts.

Lindz is represented by Laura Zats at Headwater Literary Management. 

In her spare time, Lindz is a keen but mediocre archer, a devoted cinephile, and enjoys performing at live literature events. She is available for readings, submission invites, hosting duties, writing workshops, and events—contact her at lindsey.mcleod@hotmail.co.uk or on Twitter/bluesky @lindzmcleod