The cover of Carrie's book, Small Town Joy, and two review extracts. 

"An absolute treat of a read... a mixtape lovingly assembled by a friend's cool, knowledgeable older sister." - Gutter Magazine
"Her exploration of queer music's escapist, visionary powers brings joy, not in small neasures." - The Wire
  • I wrote a wee piece in MacFormat about the scourge of videos shot in portrait mode, and Glen Mulcahy let me know about this superb public service announcement. [more]

  • The answer, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, is lots. MWC 2013 really reminded us of Girls Aloud, the pop phenomenon that’s reunited for one last tour: while the girls are officially equals, Cheryl Cole is a much bigger star than all the others combined. MWC’s Cheryl was Samsung. Samsung might not have turned up in a [more]

  • I’ve written a few times about the downside of uploading to online services: sometimes it can be hard to get your stuff back out again if you want to move to a different service or just want a backup. As a result of my moaning I’ve been emailed by the people behind SocialSafe, and they [more]

  • I’ve been spending a lot of time in Logic Pro, Apple’s music production software, recently. It’s a wonderful, powerful program with some odd ways of doing things, and one of those odd things is driving me bloody insane. If anybody knows the solution I’d be delighted to hear it. It’s a drag and drop thing. [more]

  • Me, in .net: I would say that 98 per cent of my time using the mobile web is spent swearing at websites, hurling expletives at interstitials, unleashing angry utterances at URL shorteners and firing f-bombs at Facebook. The single most fundamental principle of the World Wide Web – the mechanism by which you click on [more]

  • It’s been a while since I shared figures about Coffin Dodgers, so here’s an update for anyone interested in the ins and outs of self-publishing. Total sales of Coffin Dodgers are sitting at 30,360. That breaks down as 13,660 paid copies and 16,700 freebies; as more and more authors (and publishers) use free copies as [more]

  • I’m finishing off my last few commissions for 2012 – I thought I’d finished yesterday, but Freelance Santa dropped off some last-minute work, a present that’s very much appreciated – and I can honestly say this has been one of the weirdest years I’ve had, work-wise. There’s a famously sarcastic curse: “may you live in [more]

  • Some rare common sense: Changes to create greater freedom to use copyright works such as computer games, paintings, photographs, films, books, and music, while protecting the interests of authors and right owners, were announced today by Business Secretary Vince Cable. These form part of the Government’s response to creating a modern, robust and flexible copyright [more]

  • A great post on tech changes by Anil Dash: The tech industry and its press have treated the rise of billion-scale social networks and ubiquitous smartphone apps as an unadulterated win for regular people, a triumph of usability and empowerment. They seldom talk about what we’ve lost along the way in this transition, and I [more]

  • Easy joke, I know. Me on Techradar: Google Maps is back on iOS, and it’s great. There’s a famous bit in the classic film Crocodile Dundee when a mugger pulls a knife on him. “That’s not a knife,” he chuckles, and pulls out an enormous Bowie knife. “THAT’s a knife.” Today Google is Crocodile Dundee… [more]

Read me in books

My debut memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was a Scotsman book of the year and Damian Barr’s Literary Salon book of the week, and it was shortlisted for the 2023 British Book Awards book of the year in the Discover category.

My latest book, Small Town Joy, is a celebration of queer influences on and queer artists in Scots music and is out now.

I’m also a contributor to the excellent anthology Fierce Salvage, which is also out now.

A photo of the book Carrie Kills A Man.