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It’s far too long, but this is still a great illustration of how you can tell any story you like on TV with careful editing. It’s the UK version of The Apprentice, re-edited and subtitled to tell the story of Lord Sugar’s mental problems. [via b3ta] [more]
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If you haven’t been tempted by my novel Coffin Dodgers so far, allow me to introduce my Super Awesome Holiday Promotion: to celebrate Glasgow Fair, when everybody in Glasgow traditionally takes a fortnight off work and goes to Rothesay, I’m slashing – slashing! – the price of Coffin Dodgers for a wee bit. It’s short,… [more]
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It’s MetaFilter’s anniversary today, so here’s something I wrote about it on its tenth birthday, two years ago. Remember the song Stuck In The Middle With You and the line about “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right”? That’s a pretty good description of the Internet. When you spend as much time… [more]
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This is interesting. Ray Banks – who is good – talks about ebooks with Allan Guthrie – who is also good – and the conversation turns to book piracy. Banks: Authors should be pleased they’re being pirated. I know I was. Over the last twenty years or so, branding has shifted from publisher to author,… [more]
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This has the potential to be brilliant: a Sesame Street game for wee kids developed by Double Fine, which describes itself as “The World’s most talented and bearded video game development team, headed by Tim Schafer!” If you’re a parent of young children and you have an iOS device, the Sesame Street app Elmo’s Monster… [more]
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Tracy from Booked Up says some nice things about my book. This book was a really quick, fun read. I romped through it, amused by the antics of the threesome and curious to find out what was going on and whether justice would be served. It’s set in a world that’s not too hard to… [more]
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I’ve bought an awful lot of books over the years, but there’s only one I’m really attached to: Blood’s a Rover by James Ellroy. It’s not my favourite book – it’s not even my favourite Ellroy book – but it stands out from all the others because Ellroy signed it for me. Last night, I… [more]
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I loved this bit of Hepworth’s post about liking The New Yorker: For most of your life the world is a frustrating place because it appears to be run by people older than you are. Then one morning you wake up and find that it’s a frustrating place because it’s run by people younger than you… [more]
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Things that make me happy: Doug Johnstone reviewed Coffin Dodgers in the new issue of The Big Issue Scotland, which is on sale today. The good Mr Johnstone wrote this: Marshall is a journalist turned novelist who has clearly been reading plenty of Chris Brookmyre and Colin Bateman, as his debut fictional outing shares with… [more]
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This cracked me up. By Jen Campbell, via MetaFilter: Customer: Hi, if I buy a book, read it, and bring it back, could I exchange it for another book? Me: No… because then we wouldn’t make any money. Customer: Oh. [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.
