A Glasgow author and critic for The Herald has won an award previously given to household-name writers including Ted Hughes and Zadie Smith.

A Glasgow author and critic for The Herald has won an award previously given to household-name writers including Ted Hughes and Zadie Smith.

Rodge Glass, 31, from Shawlands, was named the winner of the Society of Authors' Somerset Maugham Award at a ceremony in London.

He won the award for his book Alasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography, which he wrote while working for the eccentric west end author and artist.

Glass said: "It was a real surprise - I didn't even know I had been entered until I got a package containing a badge which said Rodge Glass - Somerset Maugham winner'."

"It's great, especially as I have been nominated for five prizes but never won any and now this one is much bigger than them all.

"The past winners are an amazing list of pretty much the best writers in the UK over the past 60 years."

Carol Ann Duffy, Andrew Motion, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Kingsley Amis and John le Carre are among those who have won the prize, set up by 1930s writer Maugham.

This year there were six winners for different genres, with Adam Foulds scooping the top prize of £3000.

Glass worked in Waterstones in Glasgow's Argyle Street before leaving to write his first novel, No Fireworks.

A graduate of Glasgow University's creative writing MA course, he is now writer-in-residence at Strathclyde University.

He published his second novel, Hope for Newborns, last year.