All stories relating to Scotland
Atwood goes to Scotland – and you can, too!
Adventure Canada is currently offering a week-long cruise of the Scottish Isles in the company of Margaret Atwood and her husband, Graeme Gibson. There is no information given on Adventure Canada’s website as to what Atwood and Gibson will actually be doing on the cruise, though presumably their itinerary will skew closer to things like lectures and birdwatching rather than shuffleboard, Love Boat-style romantic hijinks, and sangria on the Lido Deck.
Considering that, on a similar birdwatching trip to the Arctic, Atwood “discovered” future Giller-winner Vincent Lam, we can only assume that weight restrictions on unpublished novel manuscripts will be strictly enforced.
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They love her in Scotland
Margaret Atwood’s extensive list of awards, citations, and fellowships just got even longer with the announcement that she has been chosen as the the inaugural writer for the The Muriel Spark International Fellowship. The fellowship, named after one of Scotland’s most revered novelists, will see Atwood fly to Scotland in September, where she will “spend time concentrating on work while also taking part in a number of light public duties, including presenting masterclasses, readings and lectures.” Those duties include a stay at an artists’ residency centre in Argyll and Bute and a public reading in Edinburgh. (Thanks to Bookninja.com for the link.)
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Read about the inaugural Muriel Spark International Fellowship
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New short-story prize announced in Scotland
As The Independent reports, a new prize announced at the Edinburgh International Book Festival hopes to bring back the glory days of the short story. The organizers of the National Short Story Prize are offering £15,000 to the winner and £3,000 for the runner-up, and hope to see the award grow to Booker-sized stature.
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Click here for the full story from The Independent
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MacTempest in a MacTeapot
An article on the Scotsman site reports on the lively debate in the Scottish media over the state of the nation’s contemporary literature. One camp claims that Scottish authors repeatedly depict Scotland as “a country populated by inward-looking people who celebrate failure and revel in a culture of poverty.” The latest to champion this view is Jenny Brown, a literary agent and former director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, who said, “In an age where readers are looking for feel-good novels, Scotland excels at feel-bad books.” The other side argues that Scottish authors are simply offering an accurate depiction of the national psyche, often with great humour and compassion. Bob McDevitt, head of the Scottish office of Hodder Headline, defends the authors by saying, “their characters are unemployed, dispossessed, drug-addicted, divorced, but there is still a modern sense of humour.” Actor Robert Carlyle was less restrained, calling the criticism “a fucking ridiculous thing to say…. It’s all right for people sitting in wee middle-class jobs in wealthy parts of Edinburgh or Perth, but a lot of people are outside of that.”
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Read the Scotsman piece
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