About

My name is Emma Cowing. I am a journalist based in Scotland.

I am currently the Features Editor of the Scottish Daily Mail, where I also write regularly and pen a weekly column.

In my 23 years in the business I’ve written for a wide range of publications including the Spectator, the Scotsman, the Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, Scotland on Sunday, the Sunday Herald and the Irish Times. I am also an occasional contributor on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 5 Live.

In January 2014 I was awarded the Ochberg Fellowship at Columbia Journalism School’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University in New York.

In April 2015 I was named Feature Writer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.

In 2018 I was shortlisted for Feature Writer of the Year, and in 2019 I was shortlisted for Interviewer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.

In April 2020 I was named Interviewer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards, and runner up in Columnist of the Year.

I’ve spent a morning in prison with Prince Charles, an afternoon at Susan Boyle’s house, and an evening hovering between life and death on the front line in Afghanistan. Journalism can be many things, but dull is never one of them.

I have written extensively on the military, traumatised army veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and instrumental music tuition in schools, on which I led a successful campaign which resulted in the Scottish government banning tuition fees for all exam students. I have also spent time investigating the abuse of children by members of the Scottish legal and political establishment in the 1970s.

Throughout the pandemic I have been writing columns from my kitchen table, and hope to bring an archive of them to the site soon. In the meantime, here is a column written in December 2019 on the death of a neighbour, and how the past travels with us, wherever we go.

Out of hours I run, read and write. Like every journalist out there I am half way through writing my first book. I also love cheese, Scottish island hopping and adventures, both near and far, with my fiancé.