Jock Stein is a Church of Scotland minister with degrees from Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. He was ordained by the Presbyterian Church of East Africa and brings to his writing experience of the Sheffield steel industry, parish ministry, and management of Carberry Tower Conference Centre. He has chaired Dundee Cyrenians, Tyne and Esk Writers, and the Wayfarer Trust, and his last big book was Temple and Tartan: Psalms, Poetry and Scotland.