Brian McCabe was born in a small mining community near Edinburgh. He studied Philosophy and English Literature at Edinburgh University. He has lived as a freelance writer since 1980. He has held various writing fellowships, most recently as Novelist in Residence at St Andrews University. He was the Scottish / Canadian Exchange Fellow 1988-89. His books have won several Scottish Arts Council book awards, and he won the Canongate Prize in 2000. He is presently Writer in Residence for Perth and Kinross Council, based in the William Soutar House in Perth. He lives with his family in Edinburgh.

Brian has published three collections of poetry Spring's Witch (Mariscat Press) and One Atom to Another (Polygon) and Body Parts (Canongate). He also writes fiction and has published two collections of short stories, The Lipstick Circus (Mainstream, 1985, 1988, 1990) and In a Dark Room with a Stranger (Penguin, 1995) and a novel The Other McCoy (Mainstream 1990 / Penguin 1991). His most recent collection of short stories A Date With My Wife was published by Canongate in June 2001. Selected Stories was published by Argyll in 2004.