World Book Day Author Focus
Last Thursday was World Book Day, though many local schools and other organisations waited until the Friday to put on their book-related festivities.
With this in mind, I thought it might be good for this week’s PerthshireHour podcast, to turn our focus towards our huge range of local authors. (You can follow this link for details on how to listen to the podcast on basically any device you like).
I reached out to a few authors I know for information on their activities. I was also happy to receive (more than) a few messages from other local authors who I hadn’t met before.
Not all of them write for children so their experience of World Book Day was a little different. However, they were all still good enough to share a little of what they’ve been up to as well as some information about themselves and their books.
If you contacted me through the course of this past week and don’t hear yourself mentioned here please bear with me. In light of receiving such a large number of responses, I’ve decided to add a ‘local writers’ segment to each episode going forward. It won’t be a long segment, but I hope it will help share information about our local writers and the breadth of poetry, prose, fiction, and non-fiction that is being created on our doorstep.
I should also note that I received a lot of messages specifically from local poets, reaching out to share information about their upcoming publications and what they’ve been up to as well.
I actually received a surprising volume of poetry-specific responses, and with international poetry day coming up on Tuesday 21st March, I thought it would be good to highlight the incredible range of poets we have on our doorstep with a poetry special on Wednesday 22nd March. If you’d like to contribute, please get in touch.
With the poetry day set, let’s turn our attention back to novels and writers of prose and see who is writing in Perthshire, and what they’ve been up to recently.
Helen Grant
Helen didn’t do anything specifically for World Book Day. However, the last time she published a Young Adult novel was a long time ago. She mainly writes for adults now and World Book Day is often simply an event for children and teens.
However, Helen was still good enough to share a bit of book news; her ninth novel ‘JUMP CUT’ is going to be published this autumn! The exact date is still To Be Confirmed but it will be released by Fledgling Press in Edinburgh.
Helen explained:
“The book is about a haunted lost film(!) and it’s set in Perthshire – the exact location isn’t named but it’s set around here.”
Helen also has a story coming out in Titan Books’ “Twice Cursed” anthology, in April. Other contributors include Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill and Sarah Pinborough. I was really impressed by the list of names she gave me and can’t wait to get hold of a copy myself. The theme of this particular anthology is “dark fairytales with a curse” and Helen’s story is called “A Curse is a Curse.”
You can read more details about these bits of news, and a little more in her blog post about it here.
Despite the lack of World Book Day info, I’m really pleased that Helen took the time to share some genuinely exciting book news with the podcast. Thanks for the catch-up Helen.
David MacPhail
David writes about nice Vikings, ghost Grandads, and even more Vikings (among other things). He’s a constantly busy guy and every time I’ve spoken to him recently, he has either just completed a school visit/ book event, or he’s on his way to one. You can find out more about David (and his books) here.
Last week was no exception as David was away up in Inverness. David filled me in on his busy day, including an encounter with a Viking Oompah-Loompah (which I hadn’t realised was a thing!).
I used to visit schools a lot myself but lockdown changed the game a little. With this in mind, I asked David if things seem to be going back to normal with school book talks at last. He sounded really optimistic:
“Yes there are more festivals coming back, and school visits, and people coming out of the woodwork who you haven’t heard of for a few years.”
Sounds like authors are finally getting the chance to get back into schools and share their love of literature and writing once more. (I’ll need to pick up the phone and get myself booked into a few myself)
Thanks for taking a few minutes from your busy schedule to catch up David.
Pauline Tait
Pauline is pretty much responsible for me putting together a PerthshireHour podcast special on authors. She emailed me a couple of weeks ago and we talked about her writing and her upcoming World Book Day event in Stirling.
Pauline hosted an event in Waterstones in Stirling for World Book Day this year (a return visit for Pauline, as she had been their visiting author for World Book Day last year). Her event was ‘Storytime’, where she read from her ‘Fairy in the Kettle’ trilogy, then followed arts and crafts where she and the children made fairy wings, wands, and finger puppets.
As I say, it was after talking to Pauline about all of this that I decided that an author-focused episode would be a great way to showcase the various writers to be found in our area. Thanks for the inspiration, Pauline.
Pauline is a novelist and children’s author. Her work is varied, encompassing picture books, as well as suspenseful Romance. She’s lived and worked in Perthshire all her life and currently writes full-time.
She explained to me that she has “…a deep-seated passion to encourage our younger generations in their own reading and writing, which I do through school events. This can be as a storytime followed by a Q & A/chat about all things writing and being an author OR I can give a creative writing lesson.”
She also took a moment to explain some of the thinking that has gone into her children’s books:
“My years working with reluctant readers means that my picture books are laid out in a particular way. Care is given to the choice and colour of fonts, and my covers are tactile. My stories also promote kindness, thoughtfulness, friendship, and working together.”
Pauline was in primary literacy support for a number of years working with children who needed extra-curricular support in reading and writing. For some children, this relationship was temporary, e.g. as she helped them reach their stage target. However, sometimes she would work with the same child all the way through to the end of Primary school.
Her picture book back catalogue includes The Fairy in the Kettle trilogy, and her new picture book character has already been revealed via social media. We’ll all get to meet ‘Wanda the Weary Witch’ when her book is published in August this year.
On the other end of the reading age spectrum, Pauline also has news about a couple of her books for adults.
Pauline’s first novel ‘A Life of Their Own’, was first published in 2019 but has since been republished as a 2nd edition in October last year with a new cover as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Pauline describes it as:
“…a suspenseful romance and… rather than focussing on domestic violence, this novel offers hope and inspiration as it follows a young mother’s journey, both emotionally and physically, as she flees an abusive marriage with her two young children. On the rear pages of the book, there are contact details for charities around the world, and they are there, as a first point of contact, ready to help.”
Pauline’s next suspenseful romance, ‘Abigail Returns’, is set on The Isle of Skye and is the first in a six-book series. It’s due for publication in late May/early June this year.
Sounds like Pauline has a busy year ahead of her. Thanks for taking the time to tell us a bit about yourself and your books Pauline.
Fiona Lowry
Fiona is based in Perthshire, where she lives with her family. Her two children are the first to hear her newest stories and offer her constant inspiration with their infectious lust for life.
On top of being an author, Fiona is also a designer and director of a successful Design & Installation company. Having discovered the power of positive thinking, Fiona wanted to translate that into inspiring stories for children. Stories which she hopes will:
“…encourage them to enjoy their imagination, believe in themselves, and follow their authentic inner voice.”
Her two self-published books, ‘Franco and The Green Light Fairy’ and ‘Felix’s Favourite Day’, are available on Amazon. Her third book ‘Meeting Pip’ is Coming Soon.
On her website, she explained that she has created a ‘writing space’ (wish I could get one of those set up myself sometime) and she notes that she is working on several other stories inspired by the world and events around her.
Thanks for taking the time to catch up Fiona, let us know when your newest book is out and we’ll be sure to tell people about it here on the PerthshireHour Podcast.
Lindsey Gibb (Author of ‘Perthshire Folk Tales’ and professional storyteller)
Lindsey got back to me about what she was up to last week. It clearly wasn’t World Book Day related but it was, nonetheless, very interesting. Here’s Linsey’s message:
“Hi John,
For World Book Day I was actually working in my other job for the Royal Scottish Geographical Society where we were hosting Lyse Doucet, BBC Chief Foreign Correspondent, who spoke very movingly about reporting on the Turkiye/ Syria earthquake, Ukraine, the evacuation of Kabul amongst others. One of the best talks I’ve ever been to and Lyse is a great storyteller. One of the reasons I’m a storyteller is because I love stories so I go and see other storytellers, of all sorts, whenever I can.
It’s been a busy time as I’ve just finished a stint as one of the in house storytellers at SPECTRA, Scotland’s Festival of Light in Aberdeen and I’ve got several projects in development and am currently doing lots of research. I continue to work with the Cateran Eco Museum and I’m looking forward to our next event on Sunday 7 May in Glenshee where I’ll be telling new and old Perthshire stories connected to the legendary Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn MacCool). Here’s a link to the event.
Previous work with them has included The Awakening and the ROOTED Storybank, all about our relationship with trees.
Kind regards,
Lindsey”
Lindsey also supplied me with links to her profile page on the Scottish Book Trust website and to her profile on the Traditional Arts & Culture Scotland website.
John Bray (Me)
I was going to read a draft chapter from my work in progress ‘Jack Reusen and the Children of Fate’. However, I chickened out as this book hasn’t been looked over by my editor yet. Instead, you can listen to the podcast episode for a sample of my dark fantasy book ‘Marcus’.
‘Marcus’ is set in a (partially) fictionalised version of my home town of Crieff and features a mixture of local myths and new inventions in a story of ghouls, hauntings, and mysterious disappearances.
My ‘sample’ went on a little longer than I had intended but I hope you enjoy it. You can pick up copies in Strathearn Arts (in Crieff), Fun Junction (in Crieff and Perth), and it’s also available everywhere on Kindle (here’s the link to my Amazon Author page).
Social Media (Not so much a tip this week)
The Future of Twitter Live Spaces
We ended this week’s episode with a note on changes to the way that Twitter will deal with their ‘Live Spaces’. According to this article in Social Media Today, Twitter is set to close off the archive feature for their Live Video Archive.*
This is linked to the old Periscope architecture that is also used for the audio Live Space feature that we use for the PertshireHour Live Space over on Twitter. With this in mind, we’ll now be leaning more into the podcast format and distributing the podcast as the primary means of access to the audio recordings.
Officially the Live Space feature is still available on Twitter and we’ll continue to use it as long as we can. However, the Live Space will now be run whilst being mindful of the potential knock-on effects of the closure of the Live Video Archive.
*Please note that when recording the podcast I had misunderstood Twitter’s announcement and assumed that there had also been an announcement that the audio archive was closing down. As yet this has not been confirmed. However, based on the fact that the whole Live Space architecture is based on Periscope, I think it’s safe to hedge our bets and behave as though this feature is being wound down.
Facebook Hashtags are becoming (even more) useless
Another article in Social Media Today noted yet another nail in the coffin for the useability of hashtags within Facebook.
Facebook hashtags have always been far less useful than Twitter’s, with a lack of sorting functions (like asking to see the most recent posts containing that hashtag first). With this in mind, Facebook hashtags have never been particularly useful.
However, the new announcement (which pertains primarily to hashtags within Facebook Groups) is yet another example of Facebook pulling back on the support for hashtags, so the likelihood of basic hashtag functionality seems to be shrinking by the day.
In regards to how we use hashtags for PerthshireHour (every Wednesday between 8pm and 9pm) this means it’s even less worthwhile adding the #PerthshireHour hashtag on Facebook posts. Instead, try to share your post/ information with me via the Crieff Business Page, my Twitter account, my account on Instagram, or by using the contact form on this website.
Become the Story in Next Week’s PerthshireHour Episode
There’s still time to put your business, organisation, group, event, or even simply yourself forward as a topic for next week’s PerthshireHour podcast.
Most weeks I try to feature a particular segment on one topic. However, I can also create an episode around a particular theme (like this week’s Author focus, or the Poetry focus which with take place in the episode to air in two weeks).
The primary aim of the PerthshireHour podcast is to highlight all the amazing things to be discovered in our area so please get in touch and help spread the word about your own endeavours.
The number of listeners has doubled over the past week and I’m so grateful, it makes all the prep worthwhile when you know you have such a responsive audience. Thank you to everyone who tuned in and to you for taking the time to peruse these show notes.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s episode,
All the best, John
Green Flame Creative 