New fiction from NICK ARMITAGE about a man who can’t read in peace. …

More…The Helicopter Pilot’s Handbook

Scots language short story by MATTHEW FITT. In a prison block in a drowned Scotland of the near future, inmate Laz talks us through his daily grind. …

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Review of The Oxford Companion to the Brontës by Christine Alexander and Margaret Smith. …

More…Reading the Brontës

A love letter from EDDIE GIBBONS. …

More…Desired Errata

WRITERS BLOC breaks into print. December 2004. …

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Richard Woodhead writes of his love of the author, which inspired him to write The Strange Case of ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. …

More…RLS and Bluidy Jack

Jennie Renton interviews PHILIP PULLMAN, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy. …

More…Philip Pullman Interview

Textualities editor Jennie Renton interviews Norwegian crime writer KJERSTI SCHEEN about her first book to be translated into English, Final Curtain. …

More…Kjersti Scheen Interview

A conversation between Benjamin Morris and poet JACOB POLLEY on the nature and power of words, and the effects of language in our lives and superstitions. …

More…Jacob Polley Interview

Grounding a World is a collection of seventeen essays by people from diverse walks of life, responding to the work of KENNETH WHITE. …

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KEN COCKBURN discusses his book collection – lovingly acquired for its contents, and not for its value at auction. Archive article from the Scottish Book Collector. …

More…Flitting Across the Shelves

MAGGIE FERGUSSON’s Life of George Mackay Brown is an engrossing portrait of the Orcadian writer. Here she speaks to Textualities editor Jennie Renton about her first meeting with Mackay Brown, her impression of the man, and her experiences writing his biography. …

More…Interview with Maggie Fergusson

Creative writing student AMANDA MOODY gives her thoughts on Edinburgh’s El Otro Lado conference, a celebration of work by contemporary Latina and Chicana writers, which took place between Thursday 23 and Saturday 25 March 2006. As an inheritor of this nascent literary legacy – a member of the next generation of the Chicana movement – the conference had a special resonance for Amanda.

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More…Remebering El Otro Lado

The poet BRIAN McCABE on numbers and words, on the importance of mathematics and those who obsess over numbers. …

More…Numbercrunching

Frederick Lewis considers the ballet books of LORNA HILL – the Sadler’s Wells and Dancing Peel series – and the memories they awake in him. …

More…Dancing Across the Border: An Adult Reading of Lorna Hill