This blog will focus on writing and different kinds of narrative art. We’ll discuss fiction: novels, short stories, film, drama, memoir and other forms. We’ll probably also write about music from time to time. No doubt I’ll mention Bob Dylan too much. I’ll talk about thi wurd, our forthcoming publications and events. (Our events are taking place online at the moment but here’s hoping the go live and in-person soon enough.) This will be a space to keep people updated on where we are in terms of putting out our magazine, what’s going to be in the magazine, and the books we’re editing and planning to publish.
At the moment we are working on the production of two new books by James Kelman to be published this autumn. These books are What I do (Memoirs) and Tales of Here & Then. We’ll keep people updated on our progress throughout the summer and into autumn as we move towards the launch.
My job for the past twenty years has been teaching creative writing and literature at the University of Glasgow. In this blog I might revisit topics like voice, character, dialogue, narration, perspective, structure, editing and more. But maybe the blog will take a completely different path that I can’t quite envisage yet. I’d like to find other people to contribute, so there are many voices on here. I hope it wanders off at points and people can skip the parts where I go on about a new Bob Dylan release (warning: a new Dylan album is coming out this Friday, on June 19th 2020).
What could the topics be? Maybe artistic sensibilities and processes. How writers develop sensibilities. What great literary artists say about their processes. What it is like to be a human being, existing within shifting societies and cultures, and yet write or make art. To get up in the morning with a head full of thoughts, ideas, fears, loves, hates, art, literature, maybe feeling inspired, maybe not, and trying to create. And doing all this while the clock ticks.
Alan McMunnigall