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Indelible Ink: Kirsty Gunn’s ‘The Big Music’
I first came across the term ‘The Big Music’ with reference to The Waterboys in the early 1980s. It was the name of a track on their 1984 album, ‘A Pagan Place’ and I think it was Mike Scott, in an interview from that time, who explained this was what the band aimed to make; […]
Alistair Braidwood
February 4, 2014
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Writing Competition, 1st Place – ‘Promenade’ by James Carson
‘Promenade’ is a wonderful journey through Glasgow, and by extension, Scotland, moving from the past to the present, a voyage of discovery as our guide sees the city as if with new eyes, wondering at the sites he sees and the people he meets. Same as it ever was, yet always changing.
Alistair Braidwood
January 7, 2014
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Writing Competition, 2nd Place – ‘Homesickness’ by Katriona Kerr
Emotion, both positive and negative, drives ‘Homesickness’. It’s a fantastic depiction of the love/hate relationship which many of our entrants expressed, but none did it with such fervour and poetry as Katriona managed.
Alistair Braidwood
January 7, 2014
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Writing Competition, 3rd Place – ‘Snowglobes’ by Max Scratchman
Max’s ‘Snowglobes’ is a wonderful summary of a nation, outlining how the landscape and the people unite to provoke the strongest of emotions, and taking a fresh look at Scotland’s ‘stereotypes’, embracing them instead of rejecting them.
Alistair Braidwood
January 7, 2014
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Indelible Ink: The Dear Scotland Writing Competition Winners
As regular readers of this column will know, we recently ran the Dear Scotland, Indelible Ink Writing Competition, with no idea as to who would enter, or what they would send in. The prize was all 50 books which have appeared on these pages, and the only instructions were that pieces had to be under […]
Alistair Braidwood
January 7, 2014
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Announcing the Winner of the Dear Scotland Writing Competition
Thank you to everyone who entered our first writing competition this year. It was genuinely thrilling to read the stories and poems as they came in and I know that the judges, Vic Galloway, Nina de la Mer, and Alistair Braidwood, had an enjoyably difficult time picking a winner.
Pete Reid
December 23, 2013
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Indelible Ink: Andrew Crumey’s ‘Pfitz’
In these columns talk has often turned to common themes in modern Scottish literature, but I hope the previous 49 novels, when taken as a whole, show as much diversity as unity, with different voices sometimes dealing with the same topics, but more often realising something completely new. In case this hasn’t come across, this […]
Alistair Braidwood
December 2, 2013
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Dear Scotland Writing Competition: Win 50 of the Greatest Scottish Novels
Next month sees the 50th edition of Indelible Ink, Dear Scotland’s monthly column on the best of Scottish writing. In an act which can only be described as impulsive, Pete Reid, Editor of Dear Scotland has just bought all 50 books featured since the first column was published four years ago. From ‘Morvern Callar’ to […]
Alistair Braidwood
November 5, 2013
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Indelible Ink: Leila Aboulela’s ‘The Translator’
One of the best things about reading books written in and of the country you live in is that they give you new perspectives on the familiar and everyday, making you look again at places and people you had long since taken for granted. In the last few years I have read work by English, […]
Alistair Braidwood
November 4, 2013
