Saltire Literary Award showcase, Dundee

I was thrilled to hear a little while ago that my latest book, Clubbing Together, has been shortlisted for a 2015 Saltire Literary Award in the ‘Research Book of the Year’ category. This year there are a number of shortlist showcases throughout Scotland – a collaboration between the Saltire Sociaty and Waterstones – and I was very pleased to contribute to the first showcase at Waterstones Dundee on 5 November.

We had a great discussion about the different books, life as a writer, and also the most challenging and most wondeful experiences we had in relation to the writing of our respective books. For the latter I’d like to reiterate here what I said at the event: that for Clubbing Together, as for my first book, I have always taken great pleasure from my meetings with Scottish communities around the world. This may fall under the heading of ‘impact work’ these days, but I have been doing outreach and knowledge exchange long before that term was ever used – in part by coincidence, in part because I firmly believe that academics should engage wider audiences. So whether in New Zealand for the Turakina Highland Games, in the US for the Tartan Day parade, or, later this month, in Hong Kong for the St Andrew’s Ball, it has been – and will always be – my great pleasure and privilege to meet Scots all over the world and talk to them about their wonderful history.

The event in Dundee, hosted by Anne Donovan, showcased the work of four shortlisted authors; the others present were:

Anthony Cook, nominated for A History of Drinking: The Scottish Pub since 1700 [Edinburgh University Press], surprisingly given the prominence of drink and drinking in Scottish culture, the first serious study of Scotland’s public houses.

Robert Crawford, nominated for Young Eliot [Jonathan Cape], a meticulous biography of the life of renowned poet TS Eliot that reconstructs the young Eliot as he emerges from a rather unfamiliar US background into early manhood and the tumultuous years which produced his great later poetry.

Gill Fyffee, nominated for Lifeblood [Freight], a book dominated by questions of blood that confronts human error, human bravery and human incompetence, written by Gill Fyffe, who received a blood transfusion contaminated with Hepatitis C in 1988 in one of the UK’s biggest ever medical scandals.

My thanks to the Saltire Society, particularlu Cameron Foster and Stevie Marsden, Waterstones Dundee and everyone who came to the event.