For me, writing stories set, well, wherever they're best set, is a form of cultural curiosity that is uniquely Scottish - we're famous for travelling in search of adventure.
We are living in glorious days where each readers' voice can be heard.
Often we don't notice the stringent rules to which our culture subjects us.
Historical fiction of course is particularly research-heavy. The details of everyday life are there to trip you up. Things that we take for granted, indeed, hardly think about, can lead to tremendous...
I can't bear literary snobbery.
This is the cusp of an age at least as exciting and as brimful of potential as the early days of the printing press.
As a novelist it is my job to tell stories that inspire and entertain but I am increasingly mindful that many of these historical tales (which of themselves are fascinating) relate directly to our iss...
Writers are, as a profession, nothing if not eccentric.
I'm a professional writer and I consider it part of my job to publicise my work and these days part of that job is done online.
In the industry, trying out new genres is not always encouraged but what I've discovered is that as a writer, a jaunt outside my comfort zone generally brings new skills to the main body of my work.
I am a storyteller, not a historian, and it's my ambition to create something compelling - something unputdownable and riveting - that chimes with the real history but is, in fact, fiction.
She wishes her grandmother had not been so protective, and that she understood better what passes between a man and woman. As it is, she simply enjoys the feelings and wonders if they are what lightni...
I hope that, whatever happens within the publishing industry, because of the increased control writers have of their own careers, better sales information and the advent of the internet, that ultimate...
I am completely unflustered by whichever medium people choose to read my words. I'm just delighted they're reading them at all!
A word out of place or an interesting choice of vocabulary can spawn a whole character.
For a writer it's a genuinely interesting and hopefully profitable era that makes a variety of books available to a variety of readers, extending both what's available and who gets to read it.
History is full of blank spaces, but good stories, invariably, are not.
The library is a symbol of freedom.
As a historical novelist, there are few jobs more retrospective.
I'm very aware we are the first generation ever to have such incredible opportunities to express ourselves publicly to a worldwide audience.
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