-
This, by Cat Valente, is a superb piece about the inevitable ruin of social media – a pattern that repeats again and again. I’m so tired of just harmlessly getting together with other weird geeks and going to what amounts to a digital pub after work and waking up one day to find every pint… [more]
-
Here’s a photo from the GRR Bill debate in the Scottish Parliament yesterday. The response on Mumsnet, aka Prosecco Stormfront, was swift. “They can’t help themselves,” one poster wrote. “…it’s typical male pattern aggressive sexualised behaviour”. Others agreed, until they realised that the protester isn’t a trans woman; she’s an anti-trans woman, Elaine Miller of For… [more]
-
I read a lot of books this year. Here are some of my favourites. Orpheus Builds A Girl, by Heather Parry This tale of a man who believes he can cheat death is gloriously gothic, beautifully written and by the final act had me reading from behind my fingers. I’m Glad My Mom Died, by… [more]
-
After writing a very honest and often horrific account of her teenage experiences online, a trans woman I know was approached by a sympathetic journalist who wanted to share her story: amid the “debate” over banning conversion therapy, the journalist wanted to make her readers aware of its horrors and lasting damage. My friend was… [more]
-
Thanks so much to everybody who came along to my book launches this week, to the wonderful people at Argonaut Books in Edinburgh and at Category Is Books in Glasgow, and to my excellent hosts Kirstyn Smith and Louise Blain. Book people really are the best people, and I had the best time on both… [more]
-
An absolutely blistering piece by Ben Miller on the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs: I have been expecting a mass shooting at a gay bar for at least a year. This is not because I’m clairvoyant, but because I am a gay person with eyes and ears. The mass-murder at Club Q in Colorado… [more]
-
I had my annual gender clinic appointment yesterday, and I asked about a referral I’ve been waiting two years for. Ah, the doctor told me. We made an appointment for you about that in May. That’s the first I knew about it. I hadn’t received a text, letter or email, so of course I didn’t… [more]
-
In the introduction to my book I talk a little bit about Velma Dinkley, the Scooby-Doo character who became an LGBT+ icon. If you’d like to know more about that, this piece by Maggie Chirdo is a great overview of how a cartoon character became part of LGBT+ culture: Throughout the 43 films, 14 television… [more]
-
I’m in the new issue of the excellent Books from Scotland magazine, which you can read online for free. …we Scots are brilliant at mining comedy from pretty dark seams sometimes, and we’ll tell the most horrendously embarrassing stories to make our friends laugh. I’ve done that all my life, so it was natural to… [more]
-
I’m absolutely delighted to be doing my Glasgow book launch event in Category Is, one of my favourite places. Tickets are free but very limited so I don’t think they’ll be available for long. The event is on 8 December at 7pm and everything you need to know is at the end of this link. [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.
