Adam Boggon is a Scottish doctor and sometime writer based in London. His published nonfiction is collected here. This spans mountain biking and mental illness, pilgrimage and protest, Norse saga and running through snow. Mishaps with hovercraft, antique axes, electrocution and a brake-less taxi sit by accounts of medical practice across Scotland, Tanzania, Uganda, The Gambia and London – night shifts, psychiatric on-call, a pandemic intensive care unit and the disorderly rollout of an early COVID vaccination centre.
His work has been published by The Crimson, The Missouri Review, Pangyrus, Singletrack, The Great Outdoors, Like The Wind, Harvard Public Health, Northwords Now, and elsewhere. He won the Mountaineering Scotland mountain writing competition, was a Fulbright scholar at Harvard University, and has been shortlisted for the John Byrne award, the Lancet Wakley, Perkoff and Pushcart prizes, and for ‘Best Author’ by Singletrack.
You can contact him at a.d.boggon@gmail.com or subscribe for new writing at the bottom of the page.
Swimming in an Asylum
Wellness is not the same as care – for Pangyrus
Running to Walden
Leaving New England – for Like The Wind
Chariots of Rust
Mountain biking in Scotland – for Singletrack
The Shinty Ball
On call for psychiatry – for The Missouri Review.
Shortlisted for the Perkoff Prize
Night
One night shift in medical receiving – for The Missouri Review
Shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize
Prone
Redeployment to a pandemic intensive care unit – for The British Library
Journey Without Brakes
The most dangerous taxi in West Africa – for The Psychiatric Eye
Pilgrim’s Regress
Mediaeval pilgrimage, childhood, and the history of Fife – for Singletrack
Cramp
The Hackney half marathon and the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral – for Like The Wind
Snowbound
Running through snow on the Great Glen Way – for Scottish Mountaineer
Winner of the Mountaineering Scotland Mountain Writing Competition
Jab
The chaotic rollout of an early COVID-19 vaccination centre – for The Lancet Respiratory Medicine
Shortlisted for the Lancet Wakley Prize
Orders
Most Honourable Order of the Bath and a lockdown protest – for Shorts
About Rwanda
Along the Congo Nile Trail – for Adventure Medic
Brownian Motion
Running through Hampstead Heath with two escaped elephants, Popeye and Lucretius – for Like The Wind
The Causey
The Causey was to us the Crucible, the F.A. Cup Final, Silverstone, and the World Championship of Darts – for Shorts
Acts of God or Whatsoever
A shambolic ascent of Mt. Meru, Tanzania – for BASE Magazine
Natural Shrewdness
If you only read one article here, let it be this – for Singletrack
Sequence
Running in Chamonix – for Like The Wind
Yawping Stance
Potato roguing, Korsakoff syndrome, and cycling from Paris to Venice – for Shorts
Submersion
Rafting on the White Nile and smuggling whiteboards across the Kenyan-Ugandan border – for Adventure Medic
