Apart from the big writers’ festivals, writers’ sessions at fairs and community events are popping up more and more. There’s been a writers’ tent at the Newtown festival in Sydney for a few years, for example. On holidays recently I was in the little fishing village of Crail in Scotland during its annual festival, this year celebrating 700 years of becoming a royal burgh under Robert the Bruce. Amongst the parades, stalls, competitions and musical events, there was a “meet the writers” session in the kirk hall. On stage was the usual ill assortment of writers – a crime writer Gillian Galbraith, general fiction writer Robin Pilcher (son of romance writer Rosamund) and historian Alistair Moffat. Gillian was a lawyer before becoming a crime writer and she was considered and serious in her answers to questions like “how much of you is there in your detective heroine?” Robin Pilcher, by contrast, was flamboyant, erratic and bombastic. Coming from a PR background he was intent on giving “his readers” what they wanted which seemed to be anodyne, bland, human interest in the vein of Bryce Courtenay. Pilcher made number 1 on the New York Times best seller list, though, so who am I to make fun? He must have thought his one-man self-justification show was going down well because he went horribly overtime leaving poor old Alistair Moffat, only a few minutes. The contrast could not have been greater as Moffat read out the first chapter of his book The Highland Clans. Using the battle of Culloden as his starting point and following the POV of a young boy watching the fight from a vantage point, it was a wonderful example of non-fiction writing, He skilfullybrought together the background stories of the various clans gathered there that day. We were all a bit bemused as we walked out into the pale sun of a Scottish mid-summer’s day.
Thoughts on books and writing