Talking about writing, talking about music

I’m very pleased to have been asked to present a talk for the Scottish Writers’ Centre (scroll down) in April. The evening will be called Writing And Song, and I’ll be talking about my approaches to writing fiction and song lyrics, about how I think these art forms art different and about how I think they’re […]

Monthly : January

Reading long Crandolin by Anna Tambour (Chomu Press). Crandolin is an enchanting and playful novel, packed full of idiosyncratic characters, lyrical flourishes and sly humour, while ruminating on two of my very favourite subjects – food and music. The characters include a master confectioner, a bladder pipe (bagpipe?) player and a trio of Russian train-workers, […]

Monthlies

The last year or two I’ve been in the habit (more or less, sometimes I slipped) of reporting on what I’ve enjoyed reading during each month. The original impetus for this had been realising that I’d pretty close to stopped reading for pleasure a few years ago, and hey it worked. I’ve read a lot […]

Caledonia Dreamin’

Word from Hal Duncan that he and Chris Kelso are editing an anthology of strange fiction inspired by Scots words. I love the idea. Because to me Scots is more than a provincial dialect or a style of 18th century poetry that’s trotted out with the tartan and the haggis on Burns’ night. Scots is […]

Delivery

I like a good fiction podcast from time to time. They’re good company when you’re working through something long and drudgey at work, and when they’re done well, they’re excellent. My paragon for audio presentation of fiction is BBC4extra. Understandably, since it’s a huge, professional organisation. But there are a lot of skilled independent and […]

New ideas

So, I’ve been up since 5am this morning (one of us had a redeye to catch), and since I finished the rework job last night I’ve been planning what to do next. The next important thing is to go back to Queen Of Clouds and assess exactly what needs done to finish that too, but […]

BSFA Shortlist

Over the last few years I’ve got into the habit of looking out for the BSFA awards shortlist announcement and resolving to read all the nominees before voting. The year before last I succeeded. Last year I ended up short by one novel, and looking at the way things is stacking up for the first […]

Challenge #2

Hot on the heels of the great Sales v Williamson 2013 Short Story Challenge, I’ve been challenged again, this time by Gio Clairval. Rather than complicate things, I’m keeping the two challenges separate. So, summary of the rules: 1/Timeframe Jan1 – Dec 31 2013 2/ New story submitted for the first time = 1pt. 3/ […]

The Sales v Williamson 2013 Short Story Challenge

So, in the comments of a recent post writer and friend, Ian Sales, challenged me to “friendly” race of sorts. The reasoning is to get both of us writing more short fiction this year. The rules: 1/ Contest runs between January 1 and December 31 2013. 2/ Each writer gets one point for a story […]

Talking saw

Last October Markee and Bert were invited to take part in GreenerVisuals’ Creativity interview series. Alison and the crew filmed our Glasgow Cabaret performance of Israphel’s Book, and interviewed us about the show, ourselves and cabaret in general. It was rather good fun, and aside from being ample demonstration of why Bert doesn’t get to […]