Back in 2012, the Scottish author and screenwriter Ewan Morrison introduced at least a few Guardian readers to a literary phenomenon with an pedigree older than most probably had thought: “fan fiction”, or “fanfic”. In its simplest form, fanfic is when people write their own […]
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Calton Hill, Journeys and Evocations, by Stuart McHardy & Donald Smith
There is a strangeness to Calton Hill. The volcanic fragment is neither the tallest nor largest of Edinburgh’s numerous hills–indeed, at just 103 metres (338 feet) it’s dwarfed by Arthur’s Seat barely half a mile to the south–but it has a unique sense of separateness from the Scottish capital, “stubbornly enduring as an untamed space […]
The Mile, by Craig A Smith
Three Scotsmen walk into a bar… It could be the set up for a joke. To an extent it is–a humorous conceit transposing personal, metaphorical journeys onto a physical, geographical stagger down the length of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, from the historic Castle at the top via its most prominent public houses to outside the Scottish […]
Blossom, by Lesley Riddoch
“Scots are currently being asked to define Scottishness through the constitutional prism of independence alone,” writes Lesley Riddoch, early on in her new book. “But perhaps that isn’t a wide, searching or engaging enough perspective.” Riddoch admits from the start that Blossom: What Scotland Needs To Flourish “could be dismissed as a rant. It is […]
The Flight of the Turtle: New Writing Scotland 29
First published by Northwords Now. Anthologies and competitions celebrating and encouraging Scottish writers may not be rare these days, but they nevertheless have a habit of, at best, blazing like fireworks for a short few years and then vanishing. It’s therefore a genuine achievement that the 30th annual New Writing Scotland anthology will be published next […]
