Busy Times (otherwise known as swanning around & not doing much writing)

Such a busy few weeks. I had a lovely time at Dundee Literary Festival where I finally met fellow Scott Prize winner Kirsty Logan in the flesh. We discussed short stories, debut novels and fairy tales and during the course of our event we discovered that we both found our agents as a result of writing competitions. 

Kirsty's debut novel sounds wonderful. Here's the cover.

Isn't it beautiful?

The other fantastic thing about going to Dundee was the scenery. Here's a few pictures of the view from the train window.

I also had a great time at the Off the Shelf Festival of Words. My event with Berlie Doherty was held at the Quaker Meetinghouse. It was really refreshing to see a sign like the one below in a place of worship.

I very much enjoyed Berlie's novel, Requiem. Berlie describes it as 'a novel about the influence of religion, family and music on a child's life.' You can watch a video of the evening on YouTube.

I always think of things I should have said once events are finished. I have a tendency to agree with people far too easily, probably because I have a fear of "contention" - I grew up believing that contention (which seemed to mean 'mildly disagreeing with anyone') is 'of the devil' (3 Nephi 11:29). On this occasion, I probably should have pushed back a bit when it came to the discussion of my novel as a loss of faith story. While A Song for Issy Bradley is definitely about loss, it's not really about loss of faith; it could be said that the Bradleys renegotiate their faith, but they don't lose it, and I think, by the end of the novel, they develop some much-needed faith in each other, too.

We had an early Halloween and then, at the end of last week, one of my sons had an operation and as a result I spent four nights in the Ronald McDonald House at Alder Hey Hospital. My son's operation was pretty big - it took almost 6 hours (we were counting the minutes). He had fantastic care during his hospital stay. I thought I'd get some writing done while I was there, but I spent most of the time worrying and eating chocolate. My son is now recovering at home and, for the first time in years, I've been up in the night caring for a child. I feel somewhat in awe of my younger self who functioned while enduring disturbed sleep for months at a time - well done younger self! While I was staying at Alder Hey I had some great news about a radio opportunity (details to follow in a separate blog). I'll be donating my fee from the project to the Ronald McDonald House.

And finally, here's a little bit of loveliness, A Song for Issy Bradley makes an appearance on this list - 'The Best Debut Novels of 2014' at The Huffington Post.

Dundee portraits were taken by Bob McDevitt.