Light images

 

Walking through the dapples and the falling drab pieces of leaf, and the wind gently against your face and around you, and the murmur of passers by, and a haze in the distance, scuffing the church steeples and making them unreal.

 

 

And how this is another year, and how this is another autumn, and you would wish to stand at a bonfire, in the dark, looking at the constellations and the smoke reaching out futilely to them. And how the stars are not as they seem but immense and near ageless, scattered more miles away than you or anyone you love  could live to travel through.  And that you will for as long as you live be here, never more than 40,000 feet closer to them.

 

 

But that, regardless of any passing facts and wishes, this is what you have – a pile of leaves in shade and cold sun, and that anyone who thinks this is nothing, that this is somehow too frugal, needs to look again. There’s nothing romantic in it. It is romantic like a stone is romantic, like a branch. But it is your shadow, right now, passing over the leaves. It is your breath and the wind and your murmurs and others with lives that are right now, briefly, intersecting.

Of stone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Endless Reads Review at PANK: Domestication Handbook by Kristen Stone

My review of this book, a hybrid of poetry and prose, is up at PANK:

Domestication Handbook, not appearing, by its thickness (slender) or its cover (of bloodied and pounded meat arranged in symmetry) to be really a handbook on some aspect of farming, is in fact a book of finest pins. I took my time with it, and still it works into me, and I must pause, look up from the sentences, and pull them back out one by one to examine.

Taster – Down off the mountain

D, A and I are just back from Badrallach bothy and the An Teallach (pronounced An Challauch, the last ‘ch’ unvoiced as in ‘loch’) mountain range. A six hour or so drive up North to the dramatic and lovely region of Wester Ross, which is on, as you would imagine, the Western coast of the country (although Sutherland, a nearby region, is the very top of the country, the furthest North on the Scotland mainland). Seven and a half hours on the mountain yesterday, and another six hour drive back South to Edinburgh.

 

So just a taster of An Teallach, and the promise of more to come.

 

World Book Night – how it went down

Well, that went amazingly well!

 

I fully attribute this to the use of the sign you see above, sitting in an empty box where copies of I Capture The Castle used to be.

 

My pitch, a slightly reedy call of  ”Free Book for World Book Night! Just a book, no obligations, just a book!” Sometimes adding, “just run and grab a copy if you’re too shy!” While I used the sign for emphasis.

 

The worst I had was a scowl from a handful of people. That I expected. Most people smiled, even as they walked right by. But then there were the best people – the people who were going to walk on by, who shyly changed their minds, rushed back and grabbed one, smiling just a little.

 

And the one younger woman, who was not a native English speaker, who started talking to me about the power of stories and how she hopes my book will get published (a surprising number of people thought I was giving away my own book, which I found funny).

 

And the older couple with their grown up child, who also all seemed unconvinced, then when I explained it was a charity event comprised by volunteers and going on across the UK, who smiled at me. The woman saying, “thank you, for standing out here doing this.”

 

And the group of Spanish people, who seemed to decide to take it on hearing World Book Night was partly about celebrating the birthday of Cervantes (Shakespeare too).

 

And the woman who looked so, so wide-eyed and pleased when I gave her a copy, and said “you’ve made my day, you really have.”

 

And the last recipient of the book, who wanted to help me by taking the final copy in that box. Who wasn’t, he said, a reader, but this would spur him to give it a go. I said, this book is funny, and sweet, and dry, I think you’ll like it. I thanked him profusely. I thank him again, and all of the people who were open to a free book. Open to the idea of reading something a stranger gives them with a clumsy recommendation of how good it is.

 

Also thanks to Tess of The Loch Tess Monster who came all the way out to visit me, though by the time she got there, the books had all vanished. I think I managed it in under fifty minutes!

 

Faith in humanity restored. What also helps perhaps is the Scottish love of all things free – but as you can see, things were quite international, so it can’t be explained away so easily.

 

Bring on next year!

Lucky Number 13

This is cross-posted from my Tumblr. I wrote it on Wednesday, hovering between wild hope and worry.

 

Now it is Friday the 13th, and seems all the more apt to repeat:

 

I’ve been reading Hobart 13 – the theme of which is luck. Stories and essays on being unlucky or lucky, or simply dismissing luck altogether.

 

Do I believe in luck? In theory, no. But in practice, principles of rationality get a little blurry. The idea of luck is, as Jac Jemc mentions in this issue, something of a matter of faith and/or trust: if you have faith in a higher power, or in other people, then it’s hard to shake the feeling that when things go well, that it’s not entirely your doing.

 

So, this is a brooch that I bought for my wedding. A wedding being, as anyone who has watched Doctor Who knows, a time of liminality, a time when one is betwixt and between states. Strange things can happen.

 

I wore this brooch on my silver wedding dress (actually an old cocktail dress of mine). On the way over to the wedding, one of my guests told me afterwards, she had seen a dragonfly skimming about – this is not entirely common in the north west of Scotland at that time of year (September) when dragonflies might have expected to have died off.

 

I think of the brooch as lucky because I wore it on the wedding day. I think of it as lucky because I haven’t lost it yet, as I lose most things.

 

I’m going to wear it today, and see if it has any effect. If nothing else, it’s terribly pretty, is it not? And that might be enough to buoy my spirits through the tough times that may come.

….

 

So I took that little brooch along on Wednesday when I met my agent to discuss my first book and how it is fairing the seas of submission. But there was no news there; she was seeing someone the following day. Ah, I said. We had a lovely evening eating far too much Vietnamese food and discussing bookish things and me talking about the city and its gruesome history (oh so much gruesomeness) and then I took the brooch home.

 

Today, Friday the 13th, I met up with her again to hear what had happened – taking with me the brooch and a copy of Hobart 13 (since I knew I was probably going to be early, and wanted to read it. Something to steady the nerves. I enjoyed so much of it, perhaps because the notion of luck is and was still very much on my mind).

 

So is it good luck or bad luck that there is still no definite news on Kilea?

 

There is the London Book Fair, beginning on Monday, and hopefully more news a little after then. Or perhaps in a little while more. Right now, I don’t know.

 

What does feel lucky is how strongly my agent cares about the book. How determined she is to put it in the right hands.

 

I am lucky to know her. I am lucky, too, to have D. supporting me in the edits of the next book. To have my parents and in-laws helping us out in this terrible economy. To be home in Scotland, where I feel much freer to write and to try to participate in the literary culture here – and online.

 

I am lucky to have so many people here coming to read or to look at pictures of the city, of the landscape. People who are kind enough to comment (even though, in the past few days, I haven’t been in a sound place to respond properly. I will be better!). You’ve kept me going for months, really. You’ve helped me reach out to others, to the readers and the writers, to feel like I have a right to speak about my writing, about the books I love, about the everyday beauty my camera captures, because that’s just what you do.

 

I’m lucky to have books to read, and people all over to talk about them with. I am lucky because I can keep writing. I am lucky because I love words, and you do too.

 

Are you lucky? Do you believe in fate, destiny, kismet?

 

Is luck something you keep, or keeps you?

 

Tidal

 

Landscape of: rustling grass, desert right before the black stump,  flatness, kanga and sheep country, Eastern inland New South Wales.

 

 

Landscape of: Mountain, Gums, Eucalyptus vapour, Blue Mountains, New South Wales.

 

 

Landscape of: aridity, sustaining water, bush, deep into New Mexico.

 

 

Landscape of: sea creep, early morning, Eastern Seaboard, Maryland.

 

 

 

Landscape of: Fenland – marsh, meadowy, Cambridgeshire, England.

 

 

Landscape of: estuarine mingling, Atlantic sift, river tide, Morar Scotland.

 

 

Landscape of: the sea, the sea, the sea.

Sunday Song

I hope you are having a lovely peaceful – or energetic Sunday.

And for this Spring day, a wonderfully peaceful song to listen to. I’m just finished a session of edits with D, and it’s going well so far, but this still helps. So will a trip out to Cramond island, hopefully in a short while.

What is your favourite tune to listen to while lying in a hammock, with a glass of mint-lemonade, a book in either hand, a slow river going by?

Sunblind, Newsladen

One last image from by the falls of the Clyde. I haven’t had time to take pictures of the glorious sunshine here today, only time to be blinded by it on making my way to the local gym. I’d forgotten my sunglasses, and really regretted it.  Pale eyes used to low winter sun and many cloudy days, exposed to a shock of brightness. Spring, all at once, kicking the old season back before even most trees have budded.

I’m not going to ramble about the weather – as much as I’d like to – but to share some news. My agent, the lovely Drea Cohane is jetting off shortly for London for the Book Fair and from there to Edinburgh, where I’ll get to meet her for a second time. Of course she’s not just coming to have a wee catch up with me, but to chat with people at Canongate Press. For those of you don’t know them, they are a well regarded Scottish publisher who just so happened to pick up Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope right before the author suddenly became quite famous.

They also published M.J Hyland, who wrote the excellent How The Light Gets In. I mention her because of an incident in which C, M.J Hyland and I tried to go bowling, and failed, and had some tea and interesting chat instead. That was the only time I met her, much to my regret, as she was fascinating (you hope for that from all the writers whose work you enjoy, but I’m not sure it’s the case). Anyway, back to the present  - I’m glad to see Drea making further contacts, and look forward to taking her to Edinburgh’s only Vietnamese restaurant when she gets in, around mid April.

The other piece of news I have is quite unexpected and wonderful. I’ve been asked to contribute book reviews for PANK’s blog! This came about after I saw that Roxane Gay, on htmlgiant, was giving away free books, and being a poor and bookhungry sort, I jumped at the chance. This lead to an email exchange, and to the very kind offer. I’m a little nervous, to be honest – hoping that my review will be up to the caliber of other reviews on PANK.

If you don’t know the site you should try to check it out. Aside from publishing short and longer fiction and poems and reviewing books, they run a great series called ‘ask the author’ where an author is asked questions based on the poetry or prose of theirs that Pank has published. A zany alternative to drier ‘where do you get your ideas’ interviews. As ever I’ll be putting links up here (provided all goes well) as and when reviews come out.

Confluence

A little while ago, I put my name down on Artboy68‘s website to be a part of his 100 Portraits Project.

My Gravatar was chosen for portrait number 81, and just a day or so ago it arrived in the post, looking even lovelier in real life (massive thanks from me!):

You might also remember I recently held a giveaway  - which, after picking names out of the air (I threw numbered pieces and chose one at random) the winner, through a bizarre coincidence, was Artboy68.  Right now over on his blog he’s talking about the parcel he received, which contained the photo booklet and a number of other random Scottish goodies.

In other news, I’m reading the first book of the American Indie Press Haul of Wonder:  Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith and have been blurting on my twitter and tumblr about how much I love it so far. I have to resist the urge to start talking about it already. Nope. Must. Go. Finish. Last. Pages…