Graeme Armstrong

Graeme Armstrong (born 1991) is a Scottish author best known for his debut novel, The Young Team. The novel won the Betty Trask Award, Somerset Maugham Award, and was named 'Scots Book of the Year' in 2021. The Young Team is currently being adapted for television by Synchronicity Films and has been commissioned as a BBC drama production as of March, 2025. Armstrong has been announced as screenwriter and executive producer.

In 2023, Granta included Armstrong on their 'Best of Young British Novelists' list, an honour presented every decade to the twenty most significant British novelists under forty years old.

Armstrong's second novel, Raveheart, was published by 4th Estate (imprint) at HarperCollins in June 2026 . It is being adapted for screen by Warp Films, (This Is England, Dead Man's Shoes and Adolescence) and is a dystopian rave comedy.

Biography

Armstrong is from Airdrie, Scotland. As a teenager he was involved in North Lanarkshire's 'young team' territorial gang culture as a member of the Young Mavis, from Glenmavis. At fourteen, he was expelled from Airdrie Academy and began attending Coatbridge High School, where he joined another gang, the Lang El Toi (LL TOI) from Langloan, Coatbridge.

In 2013, Armstrong received a 2:1 Bachelor of Arts undergraduate degree in English Studies from the University of Stirling

In 2021, Armstrong wrote and appeared in a short film for the Edinburgh International Book Festival Infectious Nihilism and Small Metallic Pieces of Hope directed by James Price. Later that year, he presented a BBC documentary, Scotland the Rave with IWC Media, subsequently nominated for a BAFTA Scotland and Royal Television Society Scotland awards.

During the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2023, Armstrong hosted James Kelman and spoke around difficulties in working-class representation, "cultural banishment" and Kelman's new work, 'God's Teeth and Other Phenomena'.

Armstrong wrote and presented a three-part BBC Scotland documentary series, Street Gangs exploring current Scottish gang culture, including the recent impact of social media, Drill music / Roadman culture, and his lived experience as an ex-gang member, which aired on television in October 2023 and was featured on BBC iPlayer.

Armstrong is an ambassador for The Hope Collective, a London-based anti-violence organisation, formed originally to support the 20th anniversary legacy campaign for Damilola Taylor.

In June 2024, New College Lanarkshire inducted Armstrong as an honorary lecturer to celebrate the launch of their Undergraduate School in partnership with the University of the West of Scotland, offering the first degree level study in North Lanarkshire, alongside others including author and broadcaster Damian Barr, a fellow North Lanarkshire native.

Later in 2024, Armstrong joined a panel of experts at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) national conference alongside Karyn McCluskey and Maureen McKenna OBE to discuss early intervention and prevention, where First Minister of Scotland John Swinney also delivered an address.

As of 2025, Armstrong runs a violence prevention educational event programme, 'Street Belonging', for school pupils, leaders and in the prison estate across Scotland, working with organisations such as Community Justice Scotland and Medics Against Violence. He is an associate for the Children and Young People's Centre for Justice and currently sits on the Strategic Advisory Board for the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit

Awards and honours In April 2023, Granta included Armstrong on their "Best of Young British Novelists" list, Saltire Society Literary Awards Scottish First Book of the Year Somerset Maugham Award — RTS Scotland Documentary and Specialist Factual The Cloud Factory Granta Best of Young British Novelists — Publication

Novels

The Young Team (Picador, 2020) Raveheart (4th Estate, 2026)

Short works

Landit (The Middle of a Sentence: Short Prose Anthology, The Common Breath, 2020) The Jakit, Mysticism n PPK Resurrection (Scottish Book Trust, 2022) The Cloud Factory (Granta, 2023)

Translated

La Gang - Italian translation of The Young Team (Guanda, 2021) The Young Team - Spanish translation (Automática Editorial, 2022)

Filmography Scotland the Rave – single documentary (IWC Media, 2021) Street Gangs – documentary series (Tern Media, 2023)