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Katelyn Burns, writing for Vox: The LGBTQ civil rights fight is far from over. Often, the common perception of LGBTQ people’s lives in the US is filtered through the experiences of white, upper-middle-class, cisgender lesbian and gay people [who] live in coastal cities and happen to have access to large media platforms. Kirchick’s piece is… [more]
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You’ve seen pinkwashing, when firms who don’t particularly care about LGBT+ people pretend to care about LGBT+ people so they can sell stuff during Pride month. You’ve seen greenwashing, when firms who don’t particularly care about the environment pretend to care about the environment so they can sell stuff to people who do. And now,… [more]
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How’s that for a headline? The British Computer Society commissioned me to write some books about effective writing, and this month they’re offering them as the Writing In IT Bundle with a whopping great discount. They even made a video! These books are designed to be practical and useful: you’ll discover how to optimise your… [more]
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NYT: The four large countries where coronavirus cases have recently been increasing fastest are Brazil, the United States, Russia and Britain. And they have something in common. They are all run by populist male leaders who cast themselves as anti-elite and anti-establishment. [more]
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Like everyone, I’ve been watching the US police brutality with horror. US racism is hardly new, but this – these vicious attacks on peaceful protestors, and the deliberate targeting of press photographers and cameramen and women – feels like the culmination of so many recent trends: the deliberate infiltration of the police by white supremacists,… [more]
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This image is from L’Oreal, one of many brands keen to associate itself with the Black Lives Matter movement. The company posted on Twitter to say that it “stands in solidarity with the Black community, and against injustice of any kind.” Three years ago, L’Oreal made it clear to Black model Munroe Bergdorf that speaking… [more]
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Ian Betteridge writes about COVID-19: Never has a culture been less prepared for a pandemic, and never has a virus had a better chance to become endemic in a population. COVID almost seems tailor made to capitalise on every single weakness in our culture, from expert denial and anti-vaccine madness to our lack of experience… [more]
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When I was at school, I was excellent. I didn’t find anything particularly difficult, and I breezed through exams without having to study for them. I assumed that when I left school, the world of work would be much the same and I would be hugely rewarded for doing sod-all. Spoiler: nope. One of the… [more]
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There’s a blistering editorial in the New York Times about Amy Cooper, the white woman who was asked by a black birdwatcher to put her dog on a lead in the park. She responded by threatening to call the police and tell them that an African-American man was threatening her life – a potentially lethal… [more]
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A sad but sadly unsurprising study is yet more evidence that not only are LGBT+ young people more at risk of depression and suicide than straight kids, but that the risk is even higher for trans youth. PinkNews: compared to their cisgender LGB+ peers in the Trevor Project survey, young people who identify as trans… [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.
