Guttered

Looking forward to Thursday because that's when the first edition of Gutter Magazine comes out and my story Frozen Waste is due to appear in it. Launch is to be held in Mono, the vegan café-bar-restaurant in King's Court in Glasgow at 6.30pm. Big names like Scar Culture writer Toni Davidson and Ewan Morrison were asked to write stories for this first issue and people like Alan Warner, Kirsty Gunn and Kathleen Jamie are on the editorial board, so here's hoping the mag attracts lots of critical attention. Freight Design are publishing it and they do a great job with everything they touch. They did the 'Knuckle End' anthology a few years ago, too.

Anyway, the launch will have some free drink and nibbles, some short readings and socialising. Looking forward to it. 'Frozen Waste', incidentally, was written as a first draft about six years ago but every now and then I pulled it out of the drawer and tidied it up, cutting it down from its original 4000 words to try to squeeze it into various shapes of magazines and competitions. When I saw Gutter's mission statement and requirements, it struck a chord with me as it fits a lot of the themes and socio-political issues I'm interested in so I gave the story another little spring clean, slimmed it down to 3000 words and sent it off.

Here's the Gutter website: http://www.guttermag.co.uk/

Hey, well, here we are. Summer 2009 and I've finally got round to setting up this blog, which I signed up for months ago. What does that suggest for the future? Regular posts or what?

I've chosen this photo because it looks like a kindly me, maybe a slightly granny-ish look, and that's probably appropriate. But never judge a book by its cover!

Over the next wee while, I hope to be able to use this blog to keep in touch with friends old and new, including former students from my classes with The Open University. So, if you're reading this, why not get in touch and let me know how you're doing? I'd love to hear.