Non Fiction
Whins on Gigha
Lviv
Breaking into Video Game Design
I've always written non-fiction books, essays and articles alongside my novels, plays and stories.
God's Islanders is a major hardback history of the Isle of Gigha, which was published by Birlinn in November 2006. I've visited this beautiful place for years and set some of my fiction here.
'Travelling to Gigha is always an exciting business. No matter how many times I visit the island, I always feel the same thrill of anticipation on boarding. The ferry takes its slightly erratic path across the Sound of Gigha, avoiding the many submerged rocks, and docks at the tiny terminal, at one arm of Ardminish Bay. In my mind's eye, I always associate Gigha with a certain vivid palette of spring and summer colours, by no means as subtle as might be expected.'
Antiques and Collectables
I spend part of each week dealing in antique and vintage textiles and because I'm passionate about my 'rescued' linens, lace and embroideries, I like to research them and write about them on The Scottish Home blog. I see it as a way of passing on fascinating snippets of information to my customers - but lots of other people seem to be interested too.
'Ayrshire embroidery was as fine and floral as lace; no wonder it was in such high demand. We tend to think of the surviving baby dresses as christening gowns but they would also have been high fashion babywear for the offspring of the wealthy. They were modelled on the ladies' fashions of the time with a high waist, dainty sleeves, very long flowing skirts and an intricately embroidered central panel.'
My Wordarts blog focuses on my novels and plays, with plenty of information about the background to my books, what inspires me and why.
'Before my father died, I had seen very few pictures of Lviv. Yet of all the old pictures, there was one that gave me a strange frisson. It still does. I've no idea what part of the city my family lived in, no idea where my grandmother lived, or whether this view had any significance for them. All I know is that I find myself staring at it with the most acute sense of familiarity. I can practically feel the air on my face. And I have an indefinable sense of something about to happen. As if somewhere in time, this precise place had some significance for me which I can't now remember, which is just out of reach, buried deep in my memory. This is a spooky but by no means unpleasant experience.'
Over the years I've written everything from travel articles for the Financial Times to audio tours for the National Trust for Scotland. I've written essays for online magazines, and guest blog posts on all kinds of topics. Recently, I edited my video game designer son's first eBook: Breaking Into Video Game Design: a Beginner's Guide. The title is a pun. He's still enough of a beginner himself to be able to write sympathetically about the frustrations of knowing what you want to do, but having no clear idea how to get there. The whole games industry is in a state of rapid change. Bit like publishing, really!
