A Wilder Vein is selling!

Great news from Two Ravens Press that A Wilder Vein is meeting with enthusiasm from book-buyers in its first month on the shelves. A few good/interesting reviews and coverage through its contributing writers appearing on Radio Four's Excess Baggage, Sara Maitland's piece in the Observer last Sunday, and the Guardian Travel section this coming Saturday, are helping to spread news of the title. But hopefully it's also a 'word-of-mouth' phenomenon, always the most reliable and sustained method.

'A Wilder Vein' is launched

'A Wilder Vein' was launched last week - twice! First we were at the Aberfeldy Watermill (pictured above left to right with Norma Gray and Ruth Tauber of the Watermill; contributors Andrew Greig, Alison Grant, Kenny Taylor, Mandy Haggith, and me). Then we were in Edinburgh as part of the Radical and Independent Book Fair where the readers were Judith Thurley, Jane Alexander, Ken Wilkie and Andrew Greig. It was wonderful to hear 'live' versions of the pieces I'd enjoyed on the page, and witness the diversity and the synergy between them.

I'm now looking forward to the feature on BBC Radio 4's Excess Baggage this Saturday at 10am when John McCarthy will be in conversation with contributors Andrew Greig and Sara Maitland. Local media are also making something of it here and there's a lovely review from Cameron McNeish here which also appears in TGO magazine.

Making a new radio play

I spent two days at the end of last week at the BBC in Glasgow to sit in on the recording of my new play 'The Three Knots'. It was great fun to return to that world after several years away. I heard the words I had hounded down and harnessed through numerous drafts springing into new life, was awed that they could mobilise five actors, a Director, three audio staff, an administrator and a whole world of electronic sound effects into a collaborative act of creation. To witness the nuances of meaning and subtext teased out through the sensibilities of the actors and Director; to remember that fewer words often mean more power; and to find that a terrifying storm can be invoked by layerings of sound, is a huge privilege. For the solitary fiction writer, this is a radically different, and a most exciting way of working.

L to R: Robbie Jack, Finn Den Hertog and Hannah Donaldson preparing for a scene.

'The Three Knots' is the realisation of an idea seeded at least three years ago when, while looking through back copies of the Scots magazine in the National Library of Scotland for something else, I stumbled upon an engraving of a remarkable vessel arriving on Loch Sunart in the West Highlands in 1846. It remained anchored there for ten years, and played a highly significant role in the spiritual and political life of the local community. I was intrigued. I have written about how it captivated me before, here. I walked the hills there, and started to inhabit the place with my imagined characters, until they grew, gathered to themselves relationships, conflicts, mythical associations, and so shaped a story.

Hear it as an afternoon play on Radio Four at 2.15 on December 22nd.

The Searching Glance comes out in paperback

Delighted that my short story collection, The Searching Glance is issued in a new paperback edition from Salt Publishing on 15th November, and available immediately direct from their website, at the great price of £7.99.

Reading by local authors at the Drovers' Tryst Walking Festival, Crieff, October 10th

I'm also running a 'walking and writing' workshop earlier that day in the beautiful setting of Innerpeffray Library.

Fellow of Winnie-the-Pooh

This week I started my new role as a Royal Literary Fund 'Fellow' at Stirling University. With over 100 institutions involved across Britain, this scheme has employed many creative writers over the last ten years in providing one-to-one support to students engaged in writing as part of their studies. Although not part of 'the institution' exactly, I am given a lovely home in the Department of English Studies on a campus that at this time of year and with this spell of weather, really comes into its own. Some of the buildings have rather tested my navigational skill but as the RLF scheme is principally funded by the AA Milne Trust, and I like to think of myself as a 'Winnie-the-Pooh fellow', I'm following a delightful precedent when walking in circles!

Joanne Kaar's paper boat exhibition and auction