Hibernation season

Added on 30 January 2018

No self-respecting bear would be showing its nose out of its den in weather like this – each day another gale blasts through. The inshore shipping forecast is for the sea state known as ‘high’ – beyond rough, beyond very rough, a high sea is an unthinkably dangerous place to ...

Writing History Fiction

Added on 27 January 2018

I will be leading a masterclass in writing historical fiction as part of the Aye Write festival this year, on Saturday 17 March, 12-1.30 at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. All welcome! I'll also be reading from The Walrus Mutterer at the Ullapool Book Festival on Friday 11 May, at 11.30am, when...

Dormancy

Added on 27 January 2018

The day after I got back from New Zealand I was felled by flu, and have been in bed mostly since then, just now starting to get back to something like normality, although it will be a while until I feel properly better, I fear. I have a spent a lot of time over the past 12 days just staring out of ...