Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

Carrie’s books | Carrie’s band

Category: Books

Stuff I’ve read or helped to write

  • Calling Scots writers

    Are you an early-career queer writer based in Scotland? Then you really need to know about the Queer Words Project Scotland, which is now open for applications. It’s a programme designed to help you with your writing, and with your writing career.

    Funded by Creative Scotland, it matches five emerging queer writers with five established authors who’ll provide help and advice – and this year those authors are Colin Herd, Heather Parry, Mae Diansangu, Shola Von Reinhold and me.

    It’s a great opportunity, it’s going to be tons of fun and successful applicants’ work will be featured in an anthology by the wonderful 404 Ink. You’ve got until Valentine’s day to apply and full details are available right here.

  • Just the facts

    Since around 2017, it’s been very clear that if you hate trans people you can make up any old shite and have it printed or broadcast without anybody fact-checking it before, during or afterwards – and as a result, many anti-trans activists have taken full advantage of that to spread absolute bullshit with impunity. So it’s refreshing, albeit years overdue, to see some fact checking finally take place.

    Irish newspaper The Journal did some fact checking of a claim made by anti-trans obsessive Graham Linehan on Newstalk radio. According to Linehan, if you search the crowdfunding site JustGiving and look for people crowdfunding top surgery, there are “nearly 38,000 girls” raising money for surgery.

    The actual number of fundraisers is 38.

    What the Journal has done here is not difficult, but despite fact-checking being fundamental to good journalism it’s incredibly rare: there continues to be an assumption that contributors are coming in good faith, an assumption that is widely abused by endless bad actors. Their success should shame the journalists, editors, presenters and producers who’ve let them get away with it so publicly for so long.

  • “Who needs this?”

    There’s a lovely piece by the equally lovely Robin Ince about creating things and asking yourself a simple question: who needs this?

    It’s something I think about a lot, and like Robin says “my favourite thing about the arts is the potential of connection.” When I write a book or a song, what I want to do more than anything else is to connect with somebody.

    I’m very lucky in that I sometimes get to see those connections: sometimes I’ll play a song and see people react to it, or I’l do a book thing and get to talk to people afterwards. I’ve joked that the latter is very dangerous, because it can make you think you’re Bono. But to have someone tell you that your book (or any other thing you’ve created) has been meaningful to them is an astonishing, beautiful thing.

    Ince:

    What I love to see is arts and artists that are full of love, that enhance, that make people feel happier to be alive, that offer people new ways of thinking and being.

    The older I get the more I feel the same too. I’ve done the hack work, the low hanging fruit, the lazy gag and the easy laugh. But while there may be money in it there’s no skill in it, no fun in it and no love in it. As Robin puts it:

    I think there is more bravery in showing love than shouting hate.

  • Year we go

    I can barely believe it, but Carrie Kills A Man is a year old this week. That’s a year of going to amazing places, meeting amazing people and having amazing adventures, and I feel just as excited and delighted and pinching myself about it all as I did on publication day.

    Thanks to everybody who’s been part of making CKAM happen and helping it find new homes: my publishers, of course, but also the brilliant booksellers and book bloggers and book reviewers and bookstagrammers and booktokers who’ve helped spread the word, the podcasters, writers, producers and festival organisers that have very generously given me space to bump my gums and most of all, the people who’ve read the book.

    I feel incredibly lucky: it’s been a rough year personally but this has genuinely been the most fun year of my writing life so far.

     

  • Now that’s funny

    From Popbitch:

    The intensity of internet discourse can sometimes create an overinflated sense of just how interested the general public is in certain stories.

    For instance, Graham Linehan’s new memoir Tough Crowd: How I Made And Lost A Career In Comedy sold 390 copies in its first week – including pre-sales. A figure that fails to place it in the Top 1000.

    To put that into context, titles that did crack the Top Thou include: a large print wordsearch book in at No.551, which sold more than twice that; and a colouring book called Dinosaurs Around The World, which sold over 2,000.

    He’s currently claiming to have sold tens of thousands of copies, apparently unaware that “ordered by bookshops who thought serialisation in two national newspapers would mean a lot of sales” and “actually bought by people” are not the same thing. Books not sold are returned to the publisher after a set period.

    Hilarious hubris aside, the opening paragraph of the Popbitch piece is key here: that story, and the trouncing of the Tories in last night’s by-election, are yet more evidence that the anti-trans culture war is an obsession of a very small group of people: newspaper proprietors, right-wing politicians and obsessive internet trolls.

    Update: in fairness, it’s worth pointing out that the figures won’t include pre-sales sold directly via the publisher, which is where the author’s biggest fans will have been getting their copies from. But that just further proves the point that the general public just isn’t interested.

  • Temporarily inaudible

    If you’re looking for Carrie Kills A Man on Audible right now, you won’t find it. I’m tempted to pretend that it’s because I’ve been silenced and get myself a few weeks of national newspaper and broadcasting publicity, but I’m too honest to do that. It’s an admin thing and it’ll be back on the service in a couple of weeks.

  • Talking books

    Photo: Laura Jones-Rivera

    Thank you so much to Alex Hyde, Kirsty Logan, Szilvia Molnar and everybody who helped make our chat at the Edinburgh International Book Festival so much fun. This was my first time at the festival and if you haven’t been, I’d really recommend you go next year. It’s a huge event featuring lots of amazing people, but it doesn’t feel massive and there’s a really lovely atmosphere to it all.

  • Parent power

    I’ve been keeping this secret for ages until it felt like I’d burst, but now I can go public: I’m appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this year in stellar company. Kirsty Logan, Szilvia Monar and I will be talking about our memoirs and the minefield of modern parenting.

    The event is on at the Spark Theatre on Monday 28 August and tickets go on sale on 29 June.

  • I’m in great company

    I’m very surprised and absolutely delighted to be included in Audible’s Pride List of Queer Storytelling, which has been created in association with LGBT+ writers’ organisation Out On The Page. Featuring recommendations from 42 LGBT+ writers and poets, it’s an excellent collection of must-read and must-listen books. I can’t believe I’m in the same list as so many writers I love.

    Thanks so much to Scott Aaron Tait for the kind words:

    Some books grip you from the first sentence and hold you in entranced until the end. Carrie Kills a Man is one such book… this is a must-read for everyone.

  • Everyone’s a winner

    Carrie Kills A Man was nominated for the British Book Awards this year, and while I didn’t win an award or expect to at the ceremony on Monday night (every other book in my category was a heavyweight, critically acclaimed book by an excellent author), I’m still really delighted to have been shortlisted: with an estimated 200,000 new books published in the UK every year, being shortlisted for such a prestigious award is a testament to how hard my publisher works. And how brilliant I am, heh.

    I did feel like a fish out of water, but I expected that too: these awards are like The Brits music awards in that they’re primarily about the business, not the art; it was telling that every author was limited to an acceptance speech of 30 seconds but there were no such limits on speeches by the sales teams, PR departments or rights managers. I did have St Vincent in my head a little bit: “I’m so glad I came but I can’t wait to leave”: it was an honour to be invited but it’s not a world I’m part of, or ever likely to be.

    The day before the awards, I travelled down to the Boswell Book Festival where I got to read to and chat with a really nice group of people. I know that’s part of the business side of books too, but it doesn’t feel like it: it’s an opportunity for a conversation with like-minded souls, and it’s become my very favourite thing about being an author. As nice as it is to be nominated for an award, it’s nothing compared to the feeling you get when you’re making a connection with people.