There’s a new feature on the website – My Top Ten. I’ll be regularly adding ‘Top Ten’ lists from the world of the supernatural, the mysterious and the macabre.
The first My Top Ten is ‘My Top Ten Vampires’. And no, RPat and the poutsters from The Vampire Diaries do not make the list…
The Little Book of Glasgow is now officially published. A funny, fast-paced, fact-packed compendium of frivolous, fantastic and strange facts about Glasgow, it is, to use the conventional phrase, the perfect Christmas gift.
At a recent talk I had a number of advance copies for sale and signing, and they disappeared faster than Santa’s mince pies. Amazon has almost sold out already – just one left at the time of writing. Thanks to everyone who’s bought one.
There’s more here about the book here:
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usreviews/books/historylittleglasgow.html
http://www.booksfromscotland.com/Books/The-Little-Book-Of-Glasgow-9780752460048
http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/The-Little-Book-of-Glasgow.aspx
Watch the video trailer for The Little Book of Glasgow
This weekend (19th/20th November) I’ll be attending the ‘360 Narratives’ two-day event in Stirling, a session designed to bring together writers from different disciplines to forge partnerships and collaborations. There will be children’s authors, novelists, playwrights, screenwriters, graphic novelists and games developers.
And me. I’m going to have to come out of my non-fiction shell and reveal that I’ve been working on two spec screenplays. The first draft of one is complete, while the second is stalled somewhere in the middle of Act Two. So far I’ve been keeping this new area a secret, largely because – well, actually my motives are a tad obscure on this point. Self-confidence issues? Fear of rejection? Lack of an agent? A mild dislike of the script formatting software? I’m not really sure. But such uncertainty, such self-questioning, is undoubtedly part of the writer’s journey. Oooh, deep.
What are the scripts about? Well, given the subject of my books, you’re not expecting a romantic comedy, are you?
See http://www.playwrightsstudio.co.uk/360narratives.htm for more. If you are one of the writers and other creative types attending the weekend, I look forward to seeing you there. I’ll be the one toting around the horned skull…
My next publication, The Little Book of Glasgow, officially hits the shops on 21st November. It is basically ‘1000 things you didn’t know about Glasgow’ – a mix of trivia, facts, bizarre historical titbits, artistic achievements, and peculiarities of animal and human behaviour.
If you do know Glasgow, I hope it will shine a light on areas that were previously in shadow; and if you are new to the city, welcome to its leftfield wonders.
The book is divided up into nine chapters:
Places – Here and Now, Then and There
The River Clyde and other Waterways
Wars, Battles and Riots
Crime and Punishment
Transports of Delight – From Trains to Trams, and from Stagecoaches to Seaplanes
Food and Drink
City of Culture
Sports and Games
The Natural World
The book will tell you where to find sculptures of a Native American chief and an Egyptian pharaoh; which Glasgow-set film was actually filmed in London; how many pairs of shoes were fleeced from the city’s textile manufacturers by Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobites; the story of how chicken tikka masala was invented in the city; and how Glasgow saved Britain in World War II.
There’s also oodles of stuff on everything from Glaswegian poets and authors of graphic novels to the tiger escape at Glasgow Zoo, the speed of 18th-century stagecoaches, and an investigation into deep-fried Mars Bars.
My favourite episode comes from the 1960s. A porpoise was discovered in a forgotten sack in the gents toilet at Central Station. It was never claimed and its skeleton is in the Kelvingrove Museum. Please, no jokes along the lines of “I’ve lost my porpoise in life.”