I’ve been keeping this schtumm for a wee while, but I am now absolutely thrilled to share the news that The Visitors has packed a suitcase to go travelling, and will be published in America this December by the good folks at Melville House Books. I’m delighted the U.S. edition is in the hands of such an exciting publisher. You know you’re in a good place when you see a thing like this:
Tag: books
Bloody Scotland
I’m very pleased to share the news that I’ll be appearing at the Bloody Scotland crime writing festival in Stirling this September. Hot on the heels of discussing outsiders and myths with Chigozie Obioma and Fiammetta Rocco at Edinburgh International Book Festival, I’ll be joining Mark Douglas-Home and Kirstin Innes to chat through the wonders of water in crime novels. The sea is a perfect companion to mystery, crime and puzzles, and I’m really looking forward to seeing where we go with it. You should come too. Tickets here!
And, if you haven’t already, please vote for The Visitors in the EIBF First Book Award – any and all support very much appreciated.
Radio silence
My blogging has been exceptionally poor since returning from Thailand. And I’d apologise for such awful radio silence, were it not for the fact that I’ve done exactly what I wanted to do, which is to get my head down in The Hollows and write my ass off. Five months later, I have no ass left. It’s completely gone. That’s how much writing I’ve done. No ass.
Last night, I finished a very first, very rough draft of The Hollows. It comes in at just over 101,000 words. I started in February, and couldn’t work in May (because of this). If I add up my two days a week of writing time, and the myriad mornings of sentences and paragraphs, I estimate the draft has taken me a total of approximately 35 days. That’s a ludicrously short space of time, and I’m still not sure how it happened. The Visitors took me near enough six months, I think, while my first (and thankfully forever unpublished) novel demanded a year of full-time work. I don’t think I’m getting any faster, though the muscle memory will be there – this chair, this keyboard, this notebook, this pen – but perhaps I’m believing a little more in what I want to do, where I want to go.
After spending all of 2014 torturously writing the wrong book, I’ve reached the conclusion that the key to writing is writing the right damn book. And The Hollows is right – right for me. I know it to my fibres. Even though there are weeks or months of editing still to come before I’ll feel ready to share it with my wife, I’m pleased with it. My first instinct for this story revolved around memories and mud, and while it has taken a roundabout route to get here, morphing through a dozen incarnations, it has finally come around, finally delivered what I wanted. My heart broke when I realised I was writing someone else’s story. The subsequent weeks spent with a notebook and a pen were some of the most productive of my life, but none of it could have happened without setting off along the wrong path. Sometimes it takes the wrong path to find the right one. Right? Write.
So there it is. We write to the universe. Sometimes it writes back.
I have a full week of college work to come, then ten days camping on Tiree and Coll with my wife and daughter. I’m going to print my rough draft and take a bag of pens, and read through the manuscript while the sea hushes in the simmer dim. Then comes the edit. See you on the other side.
Edinburgh International Book Festival
I haven’t really had a chance to share this yet, but I’m thrilled to report that I’ll be at Edinburgh International Book Festival this year, appearing alongside the intimidatingly talented Chigozie Obioma to discuss his debut novel, The Fishermen, and mine, The Visitors. This is really exciting, and very humbling. I’m delighted to be contributing to such an amazing event.
I have also just discovered that all debut novelists are entered into the First Book Award. I’m up against some outstanding competition, so if you’ve read and enjoyed The Visitors, I’d be hugely grateful for your vote: mosey over here for the full longlist.
Crumbs chief!
Solstice Songs
After mugging my way through a wonderful intimate spoken word night at Sprint Mill last year as part of the C-Art Open Studios, I’m delighted to say that I’ve thrown myself into running a follow-up event.
Solstice Songs will be held on midsummer’s eve in the amazing 18th century Sprint Mill near Burneside in Cumbria. I’ve gathered the estimable talents of some wonderful writers throughout the northwest and Scotland to read at the event, and you – yes, you – should come along and hear them do their thing.
I’m honoured to share the line-up. In alphabetical order, we have:
Edward Acland The owner and curator of Sprint Mill shares his startling, disarming and heartfelt reflections on people and place, distilling a lifetime of collection into magical focus.
BigCharlie Poet As well as hosting and running Lancaster’s Working Title night, BigCharlie Poet is a ferocious slam poet with word-perfect visions of life and love, all skewed nicely through a balance of wit and wonder.
Alan Bissett Fresh from having a street in his native Falkirk named after him, we’re thrilled to be joined by the multi-award-winning playwright, actor, poet, novelist, essayist and consummate performer Alan Bissett. I don’t know what he’s going to read, but whatever it is will be good.
Luke Brown Writing without exaggeration, I consider Luke to be a true heir to Roald Dahl. He is a superb storyteller of the macabre, bringing a host of weird and wonderful alter-egos to life in his darkly humorous tales.
Joy France The inexhaustible slam-winning poetry powerhouse that is Joy France joins us from Wigan with her witty and reflective take on life – life in the world, in the north, in the past, in the present, and in the weirder corners of her own wonderful mind. Here she is performing one of her signature poems, Hey Mrs B:
Harriet Fraser A multi-media poet of landscape, dreamscape, place and unusual word projects of all sorts: this summer she is poet in residence for a hay meadow, and one of Harriet’s most recent canvases was a herd of sheep.
Jonathan Humble Following the launch of his excellent debut collection My Camel’s Name Is Brian, the Tripe Poet Laureate™ brings his brilliant, laugh aloud ballads of tea cosies, leeks and rhubarb.
Kirstin Innes The multi-award-winning journalist, essayist, playwright and novelist brings her astonishing new novel Fishnet to Sprint Mill. Meticulously researched and brilliantly observed, Fishnet ducks sensationalism to explore the sex industry through the prism of a missing person.
Ann Wilson Fresh from the launch of her second collection Straight Bananas, the former South Lakes Poet Laureate and driving force behind spoken word night Verbalise delivers her unique blend of stand-up, song and rhyme.
…and me. Just me. (Sorry.)
All this wondrous wordsmithery comes for FREE, so bring a bottle, bring yourself, and shake your rump. Let’s get pagan.
Solstice Songs | Sunday 21st June | 7pm | Sprint Mill near Burneside, Cumbria
Verbalise at the Brewery
Last night was my third reading in a week, returning to Verbalise in the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal. It was a quieter night, after a couple of busy ones, but I enjoyed it. I read from The Hollows for the first time – a draft piece about exploring something like a haunted house, which was a lot of fun to read. I also brought out a couple of older pieces for the first time. Books Like Grains Of Sand and Tank Trap are both flash stories in Marrow. I’ve never read them before, as I’ve always thought they were too weird, too abstract for performance. But after what happened with Dora and The Sea Tiger this week, I also wanted to draw a line in the sand for myself – to remember that magic and wonder is why I write. I’m not going to be scared of reading those pieces anymore. And in the end, I think they went better than I’d dared to hope. I’ve felt just slightly off the boil with my last few readings, but I enjoyed last night a lot. Dora’s given me courage.
I also sold three copies of Marrow, which was lovely – I now have fewer than ten copies for sale, so if you want one, get amongst it while you can.
Next gig is at the end of the month in Lancaster – Working Title in The Three Mariners – be great to see some of you hobbitses there.
Joan Shelley at Penrith Old Fire Station
Last night, I had the second of three gigs this week, supporting Joan Shelley at Penrith’s Old Fire Station for Eden Arts and New Writing Cumbria. I rattled through new stories, Marrow stories and selkie stories from The Visitors. I think it went OK. I always misplace my critical faculties while reading. I simply have no sense of how it’s gone across, whether people have liked it, hated it, how long I was reading for – nothing. But I think, I hope, it went well. Here’s the space and me wittering on about something:
The headline act was just fantastic. Joan Shelley’s low-key, heart-rending folk and country songs were absolutely wonderful, at once crystalline and compelling, delicate and beautifully raw. She was joined by multi-instrumentalist Colm O’Herlihy for a few pieces, bringing new depths into the sound. Banjos and guitars, foot taps, a box of harmonic tones. It was mesmerising.
Have a listen here:
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It was an honour and a privilege to share a stage with Joan and Colm, as well as a reminder to keep striving, to keep aiming high.
We drove to Penrith in dusk. On the way past Shap, we passed right beneath a gigantic murmuration of starlings – perhaps the biggest I’ve seen firsthand – curving and ballooning in twilight, speckles of black against the blue. We drove back beneath a full moon, trees silhouetted against the night, clouds above in grey and silver, an ocean lapping at the shores of the horizon. The mornings are beginning to bloom.
The Sea Tiger
Dora has a lot of favourite books. We try to keep them on her own wee bookshelf in her room, but as the days and weeks roll on after a big tidy-up, they inevitably gather in a strata by her bed. That teetering stack becomes an archaeology of her favourites. There are all sorts in there, but some books are never far from the top. Where The Wild Things Are. The Gruffalo, Zog, Room On The Broom. We’re Going On a Bear Hunt. The absolutely terrifying Tailypo. Mrs Gaddy & The Ghost. I Want My Hat Back.
Dora’s current favourite is called The Sea Tiger. We spotted it in Waterstones while we were in Scotland last month, and we couldn’t resist. It’s a extraordinarily beautiful book:
The Sea Tiger is Oscar’s best friend – his only friend. They do everything together. Where the Sea Tiger leads, Oscar follows. They explore, they have adventures, until a point comes where Oscar needs the strength to go alone. It’s a book about being brave.
To celebrate World Book Week, all the children at nursery were asked to bring in their favourite story. Dora chose The Sea Tiger without hesitation. We packed her off for the day, lunchbox and wellies, slippers and book. I didn’t think another thing of it until I came home that night.
‘Did everyone at nursery like The Sea Tiger?’
Dora thought about it, then remembered. Her face clouded over. ‘No. It’s a silly book.’
I was astonished. ‘What? Did someone not like it?’
‘They thought it was silly,’ she said, face scrunched into a frown.
I was dumbstruck. She was repulsed by her favourite book. Why would other kids have disliked it? Too weird? Too odd? Too magical? Compared to what? All the books she loves are weird and odd and magical. Children are weird and odd and magical. All that anarchy, that chaos, exploring and categorising this insane planet for the first time.
I’m not sure what I’m trying to say. I’ve been absolutely shaken by my daughter’s first true experience of shame. She was ashamed, ashamed of something that she loved. That’s heartbreaking. Three years old, and another step on the long path to adulthood checked off the list.
I read The Sea Tiger again, to myself. It is everything a children’s book should be. Surreal, wild, enchanting, transporting. It’s a book about imagination and courage. It’s a book about finding your own way. I thought of Robin Williams and that little spark of madness we mustn’t lose. I thought about what I write, why I write, seeking out those kernels of magic and madness and paying them whatever meagre tribute I can muster.
Dora wouldn’t even look at the book last night, but this morning I read it to myself until she came to join me. She was as entranced as ever, thrilled and enchanted by Oscar and the tiger and their undersea adventures. That helped, but I feel very much like it was a finger in the dyke, plugging up an overwhelming inundation of the ordinary, the acceptable, the normal. I hope Dora clings to her spark of madness. I hope she never lets it go. For her next years of play, of princesses and pirates, of dinosaurs and monsters and treasure and kittens, it’s up to Mon and I to nourish it, to feed it, to fuel the fires of her imagination. That is our role as parents: curators, not makers. But then will come the homework, the tests, the clothes, the friends and the not-friends anymore, Dad, the cycles of approval and rejection. When she leaves us, she’ll have to feed her own fires.
I know all this is melodramatic. I have always tended towards extremes, especially in my words, but that’s who I am. I hope we can give Dora both the space and the guidance to be whoever she is. And I hope, with every fibre of my soul, that she stays more a tiger than a princess.
Review in Glasgow Sunday Mail
Very pleased to share a lovely new review from the Glasgow Sunday Mail:
Waterstones Scotland Book of the Month
I should have written about this sooner, but the month since we returned from Thailand has been a blur of college, film and writing. In short, I’m honoured beyond measure that The Visitors has been February’s Book of the Month for Waterstones Scotland. It’s been incredible – my excellent friends in Scotland have been sending me pictures of the book for sale in Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and beyond, and some of the window displays have been absolutely breathtaking. I’m a very lucky writer.
The good people at Quercus asked if I could pop up to Scotland to sign some books and do a reading – which fortunately fell over half term. Cue a manic two days on the road with my wife – first dropping off Dora with her grandparents, then staying with my aunt and uncle in Edinburgh, stopping off at Waterstones stores in Edinburgh Princes Street and George Street, then Falkirk, on to Glasgow Argyle Street and Sauchiehall Street, and finishing up at the Braehead shopping centre. It was a real whistle-stop thing, calling in long enough to sign a stack of books, chat to the staff, and push on again.
I’m delighted to report that it seems to have been doing well – aided in no small part, I’m sure, by Leo Nickolls‘ stunning cover. Some stores only had a couple of copies left, and it had made the charts in others. It’s also been cropping up in Blackwells, W.H.Smiths, and Waterstones south of the border.
While we were in Glasgow Sauchiehall Street, I read a few chapters from The Visitors. I’ve read from it before at spoken word nights, but this was the first time I’d done anything like a proper talk on the book. I read three chapters. Having been so immersed in The Hollows, it was even a little strange to be back on Bancree and inside Flora’s head, but I enjoyed it. The reading was followed by some excellent questions from the audience, then catching up with old friends. Within 48 hours, we were back on the road to Cumbria.
I’ve been lucky. I know I’ve been lucky. I’m incredibly grateful to Quercus, and to Sue at Conville & Walsh, and to Waterstones, for showing this much faith in my work. I hope I won’t ever take that for granted, because I want to write until the day I drop. I’m still rising early to chip away at The Hollows. I’m finding that it doesn’t really matter how much I write in these dawn sessions, as blackbirds squabble in the garden and the radiators creak into life; whether I write 100 words or 500 words, it’s much more about keeping in touch the story, tagging in every day. Last year, I had to spend months at a time without writing at all, and I fell away from the manuscript. There were times I returned to it and couldn’t remember a word of what I’d written previously. Even if, or when, I get that busy again, I’m going to try to keep going with these little sessions every day – they mean that when I have a full writing day, I can hit the ground running. I’ve written more good material this February alone than all of last year put together. That gives me courage.
Simon Sylvester 