Delighted to have two stories in this beautifully printed collection, put together by Otherwhere, an Amsterdam-based small press and Structo magazine.
A young man’s obsession reveals a haunted life in Escape Routes. And in Nerve, a young mother struggles with her mortality when she fears sabotage on a flight.
Yarn can be bought here.
Delighted to be included in this sparkling anthology of prose and poetry celebrating the life of Hugh Miller, geologist and writer, with my highly commended piece Updraft. It’s set in a place he knew well, on a summit in Glen Coe, where a young woman is wavering on the edge of a future she does not want.
The book was launched in March at the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, almost under the eyes of Dippy the Dinosaur, on tour from the Natural History Museum in London and can be bought direct from Edinburgh Geological Society
The Scottish Geodiversity Forum runs The Hugh Miller Writing Competition with the Friends of Hugh Miller.
Happy New Year everyone!
There’s no snow or ice this year but the colours reminded me of an old haiku and I thought I’d share it here.
Crystal stalactite
Holds bubbles in pink light
From newborn sun
So so thrilled to have this little gem in the Cabinet of Heed Issue 8. It’s about summer and innocence and the endless loop of time. Pour yourself a cold Chablis and relax.
*update* me on the night – fabulous venue, home crowd, top stories. Thanks again to all who made it happen.
Super excited to be reading my winning story ‘Wait’ at the Brighton Prize 2017 Anthology launch, Scottish leg, along with runner-up Douglas Bruton and Joanna Pliesse. I’ve discovered it’s a unique pleasure reading my work, made up of equal parts joy and terror so I’ll be glad to see plenty of smiley friends. Also the stories are EPIC obvs. Pleeeeeassse come.
It’s on 3rd May at 6.30pm at Golden Hare Books in Stockbridge, Edinburgh. For book lovers it’s a wee gem in the heart of the city. There will be wine, and I suspect it will be golden.
Tickets are £5. Exorcists go free. Click the link to get yours.
Brighton Prize Scottish Launch
P.S. that was a joke about the exorcists. But there will be ghosts.
One of my favourite places, this end of the world beach on the Isle of Harris inspired a flash fiction which will appear in the Cabinet of Heed Issue 8 in April. Go there if you can, it’ll blow your socks off. Not till the summer though.
I am on the train from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh. The guard is apologising.
‘I want to apologise unreservedly for the lack of reservations, on this service. You’ll have noticed these are not the usual carriages. We had to borrow a train set because, well, we haven’t got enough.’
The annoyance of the passengers relaxes into smiles and shrugs. He is so frank and in 2017 they still call these train sets.
‘Also there is no WiFi.’ There is some sniggering.
’And I’m afraid the catering is on a restricted menu till York.’ Shaking of heads. But no one is frowning.
He’s directing us to the website to make formal complaints, acknowledging the inconvenience, so we can get some money back. He couldn’t do any more. And we know it works, that compensation is often paid.
The staff are kind, patiently explaining the obvious, directing traffic gently. They call me Madam now. I blame the specs.
The passengers help each other with bags, wait patiently to ‘just squeeze by’ and move seats to let families sit together, averting their eyes tolerantly and giving hard stares when needed.
There’s still something civilised about travelling by long haul train, with all the delays and overcrowding, an awareness among us all that we could fly and get there faster but where’s the sense in that, when there are sun-tipped wheat fields up and down the country waiting for us to slide past and murmurations of birds wheeling against sunsets the length of the carriage.
It’s not about the destination, or at least not all about it, when you’re on the train. It’s on the journey that you have the unexpected insights, meet the hilarious characters, see old problems from a new angle. And just see life, lots of it, going on around you and without you and sometimes through you. It’s all out there, doing it’s own thing. You can get involved or just sit and take it in and sometimes you don’t have much choice but mostly you do. And the amazing, stupendous, impossibly beautiful world whizzing by your ears.
So this is a bit exciting….
***UPDATE!!! Stunned and delighted to have won first prize for short story ‘Wait’.
Shouts out to all the writers on the long list for the Brighton Prize. If you’re like me, prone to the occasional wobble, these slaps on the back are soooo important for keeping the motivation up. Especially if you’re more used to scanning to the end of the list and falling off, into the queasy mouth of disappointment.
Writing competitions bookend the process, making it seem more like productive work than airy daydream. Also the adrenaline rush of the deadline is a marvellous thing. Got to get your kicks somehow right?
I’ll be watching for the shortlist with tumble-drier tum. Best of luck everyone!
Delighted to be included in this year’s anthology available from 15th September.
‘3for2’ is one for all the frazzled mamas and papas out there, a riff on that age-old dilemma when shopping with kids: free shampoo or sharp exit? I know which one I choose.
‘To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.’ Edmund Burke
I’ve read a lot of novels lately with a gripping plot, that compulsive unputdownable thing. I’m a sucker for a thriller, especially the ones that creep along glacially, gathering pace towards a shocking reveal. But I’m starting to lose the thrill. I’ve got twist-fatigue.
You know how it happens. You hear the chat as the latest ‘Girl In Trouble’ is raved about on Twitter and get sucked in. It sounds like a genuinely new angle or an original set-up. You’re excited.
Three pages in, the narrator’s point of view slips a bit but maybe that’s intended. The dialogue is flat. The characters seem like actors in a horror channel movie. But the narrative drive races on and by now you’re reading one sentence in three. It gets to the emotional heart of the story and you think, yes, this is it. The point where the author delivers on the promise on the cover, shows you an experience so vivid you could be there. Something that lets you be someone else. Something real.
And it happens. And you don’t believe a word.
You don’t need to get under the skin of the characters to be compelled to read on. They don’t need to teach you anything, challenge you or give you pause for thought. So long as there is a live and present danger, you’ll keep reading. Conflicted feelings, for them or for you, slow things down. It matters only that they keep moving forward, fire-fighting their way through the plot, to keep you engaged. Like a mild contagious fever, leaving you spent.
Unputdownability sounds like a good thing but when you look at what it actually means, it’s not. Getting to the end shouldn’t be an end in itself. If it is, you can just skip to the last page. Call me impatient but if all that’s keeping me reading is the desire to find out what happens, that’s what I do.
There are other books that keep me compelled over days and weeks and they deliver the biggest emotional pay-off when it comes, a happy consequence of an honest, uplifting, beautifully written book, with a character you can’t forget. You need time apart to understand them, to think about their dilemmas and learn from their mistakes. Otherwise, what is the point in spending all that time with the book in your head?
I get that the unputdownable thriller is about escapism, filling up flat weekends, or annoying train journeys. They’re easy to dip in and out of and return to if interrupted, the flip side of their very compulsiveness. But a book can be so much more than a race to the end. Even if the end is truly explosive, it’s not enough by itself.
Like a late-night takeaway, or that third glass of wine, it promises satisfaction and delivers nausea. You rush through at the speed of thought, skimming and skipping to get to the pay-off, then crash and burn at the limp, unsatisfying end. If it’s predictable, you feel cheated, and if it’s too twisty, misled. Because the only thing keeping you reading was the cheap thrill of the ride.
Give me a putdownable book anyday. The kind of prose that has you lingering over the words, saying them slowly to hear their delicious music, savouring the unexplained mysteries, the surprising ideas. These are the books you return to because of the feelings they arouse, the sublimation they bring, the very seduction of caressing their pages. Putting them down reluctantly. Thinking about them when apart. Longing for the time to read again. Consciously coupling.
If a book is like a lover, you want a long, powerful astonishing enigma rather than a bragging one night stand. You want to wake up in the night saying the words over in your head, not wake late and hungover with a bleak sense of guilt and self-delusion.
Life’s too short for fast, forgettable books. I’m going back to the slow burn beauties that weave truths and make me glad to be alive. When I pick them up. And when I put them down.
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