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
  • Andy Ihnatko is one of my favourite tech writers, and this Chicago Sun-Times piece is a doozy. It’s about tablets, and hype, and fun. I like Apple for any number of reasons but at the top of the list is the fact that they’re capable of raising people’s expectations and restoring a sense of joy [more]

  • Over at Techradar, I’ve interviewed the head of digital at Hachette UK, one of the world’s biggest publishers. Are publishers learning from the music industry’s decade of mistakes? One of the things that sent people to the pirates with music was the problem of file formats: your player wanted X format, the pirate sites had [more]

  • Ten things you should be sued for doing online, by me at Techradar. [more]

  • An interesting post by David Hepworth of The Word magazine: experience has taught me that if I say I like the demo people will then expect me to do something to make them successful; if I say I don’t like it then I am an unfeeling, heartless bastard. [more]

  • As you may have heard, The Guardian has created an iPhone app. It’s very good. But is it as good as ink printed on dead trees? One of the side-effects of the current cold snap is that my papers aren’t delivered until fairly late in the day, if at all. I’m a creature of habit, [more]

  • Me, at Techradar: Here’s how it works right now. Firm A makes an ebook reader and it’s the best ebook reader ever made – but the reviewers and the pundits and the potential purchasers all make frowny faces and say “That’s all very well, firm A, but just you wait until the Apple tablet huffs [more]

  • Have you seen the BMW-designed Mesh PC? It mings. And then there are the Ferraris – the Acer Ferraris, that is. “Technology and innovation are driving forces behind man’s greatest achievements,” the blurb says. “They are the foundations of past victories and the essences of future successes,” it continues. “Look, we’ve made a red laptop [more]

  • A fun wee piece I wrote for PC Plus has ventured online: Back in the good old days, Microsoft did desktops, Google stuck to search and Apple made toys for people in polo necks. No more. The superpowers of the technology world are at war, and like real wars, the battle is happening on several [more]

  • Nice piece by Danny Sullivan on Facebook’s new privacy settings: I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time to try and figure out the myriad of ways that Facebook may or may not want to use my information. That’s why I almost shut down my entire account this week. It would be a [more]

  • Me, Techradar: What they don’t seem to understand is that online privacy is like curtains: you don’t block the windows because you’re running a meth lab or a brothel in your house; you block them because you don’t want weirdoes peering through the window when you’re watching TV Burp. [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.