The canonical voices of Scottish Literature are already familiar to you: no need for me to trot out the names of men so favoured by history that we have erected 200ft monuments to them on the capital’s busiest thoroughfare, or whose birthdays are celebrated with near-cultish ceremony every January. I’d rather talk about Alison […]
We don’t know if we’re bombastic enough to claim that we’re redefining the Scottish book bubble, but we do know that we want to bring a bit of fun to the industry while tackling some big and difficult subjects. Indie publishers 404 Ink are being modest. In just six months, founders Heather McDaid and Laura […]
The funny thing about the Man Booker Prize is that it’s more often judged on the merits of its exclusions than its inclusions. Never diverse enough, “too readable” last year and “decidedly unstarry” this year, coverage is almost always skewed towards the negative, because “Six brilliant books nominated for prestigious prize” probably isn’t going to set […]
In software testing, we often speak about a Happy Path – where ‘good’ input yields an expected result (or, in other words, when a program behaves itself). In life, we apply the same logic to our careers: we input hard work and passion, and we expect to yield a successful career in our chosen field. […]
I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or continue, with the most strained and fearstruck ecstasy of listening, to pace up and down this room and give ear to every sound of menace… From the haunting ballads of the borderlands to the urban gothic of Victorian fiction, Scottish literature has long demonstrated a […]
You’ve heard the old adage – those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. Thankfully, I don’t subscribe to George Bernard Shaw’s famous words. I’ve been writing about novels and editing words written by other people for several years. I’ve polished prose, blogged on books and vetoed verses. But now it’s time to take off my editorial […]
It’s been said so often that publishers might as well tattoo it across their furrowed foreheads, and yet many writers continue to ignore the golden rule of MS submission: one must always read a publisher’s submission guidelines and follow them to the letter. That a busy publisher will quickly discard a submission which fails to follow basic instructions is not […]
50 Shades of Grey author EL James took to Twitter today for a tumultuous Q&A that revealed far more about the social media community than it did about her books. The backlash and post-backlash backlash has been a phenomenal thing to behold – if you consider inevitability phenomenal. Anyone who expected the masses to politely step away […]
In news that will shock absolutely no-one, it was revealed yesterday that books written by women and about women are less likely to win major literary prizes. Amongst the findings – compiled by author Nicola Griffith – was the depressing note that “women wrote zero out of 15 [Pulitzer] prize-winning books wholly from the point […]
There is a culture of diplomacy at the heart of the Scottish book industry. It sounds quite nice, doesn’t it? In the abstract, it connotes an image of benign fair-mindedness, of tea-supping, left-leaning culturals just being really nice about saving a largely independent industry. Read just a small number of reviews of Scottish books – indeed, […]
A Novel Bookblog 