Category: stockbridge

Remember, remember…

Leave a comment

It’s November already and I’ve hardly had time to draw breath.

Until now.

Now, the Cursed Virus of ’18 has finally struck and breathing is but a fond memory. Here I am, lounging around in my pjs eating toast and feeling sorry for myself – the perfect time to ponder the highlights of this summer!

flu

Once Bone Deep was well and truly unleashed on the world in July, it was time to take a little jaunt in the company of the fabulous Sarah Maine.

IMG_20180821_110854_870

Sarah’s novel The House Between Tides was chosen as August’s Scottish Book of the Month by Waterstones, so we managed a whistle-stop tour of some top branches: Argyle Street, Perth and St Andrews, met some lovely readers and booksellers, drank lots of tea and even grabbed a delicious St Andrews curry!

IMG_20180811_095028_084But no rest for the wicked writer. As everyone knows August is BOOK HEAVEN in Edinburgh, with not only the International Book Festival in Charlotte Square, but a raft to of other exciting booky fringe events.

First up was Blackwells Writers at the Fringe programme. This is a real treat for readers, and a great showcase for authors, with a series of panel events stretching throughout the month of August. The lovely Ann Landmann was on hand with the introductions, and to make sure our books were in pride of place.

FB_IMG_1527195300488

The VERY Stockbridge basement which features in Beneath the Skin, round the corner from Golden Hare Books!

And then we joined the lovely staff at Golden Hare Books, for Myth, Mystery & Memory: Women Writing Scottish Fiction. Here, we discussed Bone Deep, Sarah’s current novel Women of the Dunes and  the similarities between them. Both are ‘stories within a story’. As storytellers, we agreed that we like to delve into that deep dark vein of the oral tradition and emerge with something powerful and new!

20181023_204726

It would have been rude not to accompany Elizabeth to the Authors’ Yurt!

And onto the EIBF! My writing buddies Elizabeth Frattaroli and Dawn Geddes were very busy bees this festival, with Elizabeth, as co-coordinator of the South Scotland branch of SCBWI, chairing a Freedom to Write event, and Dawn enjoying a ‘roving brief’ with my favourite Scots Magazine. As book correspondent, Dawn is always on the look out for the best  in Scottish writing talent, and we attended some excellent events.

 

 

I have to go and blow my nose, but next time, I’ll be reminiscing about a very special event at Barry Mill, Noir at the Bar, Edinburgh and the fabulous Wee Crime Fest, Grantown-on-Spey!

Talking Books

Leave a comment

Every so often I have to check my events page, not to find out where I’m going next, but to remember where I’ve been!

The last few months have been a whirlwind of new experiences, but Pamela Butchart,  a writer I admire enormously, once said to me, ‘After publication, everything will happen so fast- make sure you enjoy every moment’. Thanks, Pamela. I’m taking your advice!

This week, I’ve been wined and dined (okay, no wine for me- driving and all that) by the lovely gentlemen of Carnoustie’s 41 Club, attended a magical evening of Murder and Mystery in Arbroath and appeared before an audience of keen readers at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh! I think the Angus Writers’ Circle Murder Mystery is worthy of a post on its own, so let me take you to the Station Hotel, Carnoustie, and a very special bunch of guys.

Now I have to confess to not knowing what a 41 club is, but apparently it’s the ‘more mature’ division of the Round Table! So after a wonderful fish tea I regaled the lads with anecdotes from the exciting life of a writer, winding up just before the glazed expressions and tears of boredom became too visible. Yes, it really is that exciting! Joking aside, they did seem genuinely interested in ‘Beneath the Skin’ and the books were soon flying off the shelf/table, so a big thank you to Carnoustie’s  41 Club for inviting me. It was great to meet you all.

Now what can I say about the National Library of Scotland? One of my favourite places ever, I never dreamed I would one day be there, onstage, in front of an invited audience, with a microphone and everything! I was privileged to be sharing that stage not only with my lovely agent, Jenny Brown, who was chairing the event, but also with my fellow ‘future voices’, Les Wood (Dark Side of the Moon) and William McIntyre  (Present Tense). It was my pleasure to meet them both. Les  was actually one of my fellow  Bloody Scotland ‘Spotlighters’, although we’d never actually bumped into each other. We all had a wonderful chat about the writing process and all things bookish, and some great questions from the audience. The chat may have continued in a bar afterwards, but that would be telling!

So, lots more to come! I’ll leave you with a few photos, and next time I’ll tell you all about Angus Writer’s Circle and our Silver Anniversary bash. Suffice to say, there was a murrrder….

Images L TO R : With Richard Jennings, President of the 41 Club

                               ‘Voices of the Future’: WHS McIntyre, Les Wood, Sandra Ireland

‘Stockbridge Gothic’

1 Comment

When The Scotsman dubbed Beneath the Skin ‘Stockbridge Gothic’ I was highly delighted. Gothic is definitely my go-to zone when I’m dreaming up the mad, the bad and the dangerous!

Those of you who have already read the book  may have noted a few nods to my all time favourite Frankenstein. I won’t give any games away, but if you have spotted the clues, then feel free to start a conversation! This has made me think about my own relationship with the Gothic, and how it has influenced my writing. For me, I suppose the defining element of the genre is setting, and the development of architecture and landscape as characters within that context. I’m thinking about the labyrinthine Castle of Otranto, the windswept bleakness of Wuthering Heights, and the haunted attic of Charlotte Bronte’s lesser-known Villette.

In Alys’s Stockbridge villa, the damp basement, the creaking staircase, the cramped attic all take on a life of their own. There is a sense that the house is less than welcoming, resistant to the notion of being a family ‘home’. We might call such an atmosphere ‘uncanny’, a concept which, interestingly, stems from  the German Unheimlich, best translated as ‘un-homely’.

In his treatise on the Uncanny, Freud quotes the philosopher Schelling: ’Unheimlich is the name for everything that ought to have remained hidden and secret, and has become visible.’cobweb-handle

All that stuff we carry ‘beneath the skin’ perhaps…

I’ll leave you with an appropriate quote. Walt, just out of bed, makes his way to the kitchen…

‘…the hall felt somehow odd. It took him right back to being a kid again, when you come back from holidays and the house feels cold and damp…has a distance about it. He remembered how his mam used to stand in the porch, sniffing, in case she’d forgotten to chuck out the milk, or the cloths had rebelled in her absence and gone sour. And here he was, sniffing,like his mam used to do. A house with a kid in it shouldn’t feel this way.’

From Beneath the Skin (Polygon) 2016

 

 

 

 

Beneath the Skin…finally!

Leave a comment

So the book is out there! Duly launched with appropriate amounts of wine and fanfare at the gorgeous Saint Stephens Stockbridge, Beneath the Skin is now winging its way (with the help of its gorgeous feathery jacket!) to various homes and bedside tables throughout the land.

This is the scary bit!

What will readers think of my imaginative ramblings? It feels a long, long way from my first excursions into creative writing; often random scribbles (phrases, odd words) in notebooks, on the backs of envelopes. And Professor Kirsty Gunn’s timed exercises in our four-hour workshops. No pressure!

Over time, the scribbles took shape- poems, short stories. ‘Novels’ no one will ever read. Very slowly, my writing began to say what I wanted it to say. It came of age.

My great aunt Mary had a tiny oak dresser. A beautifully- carved, miniature piece of furniture, lovingly finished with all the craft and hallmarks of the standard article. It was a ‘prentice piece’, she told me. A showcase of skill; a small-scale beginning to the career of an apprentice carpenter.

So this is my ‘prentice piece’…I hope it will hold its own on the shelves alongside so many masters of the craft.

A few images from Launch Night. Thanks so much to Golden Hare Books for gracious hosting; Polygon for terrific organising. Thank you to each and every one of you who rocked up to buy a copy and listen to me blethering- my heroes!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.