Callum McSorley's Blog, page 7

Reading Roundup December 2021

You there, boy! What day is it!?

Unbelievably, it is very nearly Christmas Day again. I remember when it used to feel like forever between Christmases, now they seem to come around with alarming frequency. To try and push back against the ever-draining sands of time, here are a few un-Christmassy book recs:

At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop, translated by Anna Moschovakis (2021 [2018], Pushkin Press)

2021 winner of the International Booker Prize and rightly so. At Night All ...

Read Great Nothing in Shoreline of Infinity 29

Shoreline of Infinity 29, cover by Stephen Daly

I’m over the moon to announce my short story Great Nothing is being republished in the next full print edition of Shoreline of Infinity – Issue 29, out tomorrow (09/12/21). How’s that for an early Christmas present to me!?

Great Nothing takes place during the Cold War in the middle of the Antarctic, where contact with a remote Russian research post has been lost. KGB agent, Orlova, arrives to investigate (and we all wish her the best with tha...

Event Horizon 28/11/21 @Cymera Roxy Takeover

I’m really thrilled to be reading at Event Horizon for the mini Cymera Festival that’s happening at the end of the month (28th Nov).

Cymera is Scotland’s festival of SFF and Horror writing and happens during the summer, but this year an extra, small-scale event is taking place at the Assembly Roxy in Edinburgh to launch Scottish sci-fi great Ken MacLeod’s latest book, Beyond the Hallowed Sky.

Event Horizon is a monthly evening of SFF reading, music, raffles, and jokes put on by Shoreli...

Autumn reading 2021

Aaaall the leeeaves aaare broooowwn – All-The-Leaves-Are-Brown!

And the sky is indeed grey, or at least up in Scotland it is. And also constantly pishing it down. No better time to stay in and read if you can.

Quick personal update: My short story Great Nothing – a Cold War sci-fi tale involving a trip to an isolated Antarctic research base where absolutely nothing is going to go wrong, right? – is out in Shoreline of Infinity 27 now. You can buy the digital magazine for £2.70 on the w...

Shoreline of Infinity 27 out Friday 8th October

I’m really thrilled to say I’m back in the pages of Shoreline of Infinity once again with my short story, Great Nothing.

It’s been a couple of years since I last had a story in Scotland’s top SFF mag (I’ve got to admit I’m more fan than contributor, I love Shoreline, the previous issue [#26] – a spotlight on trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming authors edited by my pal and former Aether & Ichor colleague, Eris Young – is just incredible, and if you’ve never read an issue of SoI b...

Scottish Book Recs for My Pal in Vietnam

Hey man, you haven’t written anything on here in a while, are you gonna do that thing where you start off a post by talking about how or why you haven’t blogged in ages?

No.

(Though actually yes.)

Anyway, this post is for my pal, Andrew, who lives in Vietnam. Throughout most of 2020 when we were shut up in lockdown, Vietnam managed pretty well, having closed their borders and gone through a really strict period of lockdown early doors, leaving the people there free to go about mostly as...

Summer reading 2021: I’m not procrastinating, you’re procrastinating

Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V: “Wow, it’s been absolutely ages since I’ve posted a round of book reviews on my blog! Probably because I’ve been busy doing…”

I know, I know. But I have been a bit busy with my own writing, plus the weather. The Weather! It’s been insane. Far too hot to stay inside but, also, far too hot to stay outside. I’ll admit I’ve been sacking off reading and writing to go out on my skateboard (I’ve totally got the bug at the moment) and eat ice cream, but you only get so much summer a ye...

Cymera Catch Up

Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it online for Cymera Festival this year, however, I did pre-record an interview with the incredible horror writer Laura Mauro and if, like me, you couldn’t make it along on the day, you can now get a catch up pass to see any and all events you missed

Follow the link here to check it out.

Laura Mauro recently won two British Fantasy Awards for her short story collection Sing Your Sadness Deep and featured short story The Pain Eater’s Daughter. I spoke to Laura...

Reading Roundup May 2021

It’s over twenty degrees in Scotland. Go to the park. Take a book. One of these:

The Young Team by Graeme Armstrong (2020, Picador)

I’m gonna be straight here from the off: I was a 00’s-era grunger in high school. Band hoodies, ludicrously baggy jeans, moon boot skate shoes, questionable taste for rap metal, the whole thing. To me and the people I hung out with, the crowd with peaked hats pointing up at the sky, Berghaus jackets, young team menjies on their school bags were folk we jus...

Indie April 2021

Come next Monday, Scotland moves up into tier 3, meaning bookshops will be able to open again. No doubt there will be a salivating, Dawn of the Dead-esque crowd pushing up against the glass of Waterstones Sauchiehall Street by 8.59am Monday 26th April and I honestly might be one of them. Just the thought of wandering among towering high bookshelves is making me a bit giddy.

That said, the pandemic has not slowed my book buying down one bit, and if anything, book browsing online has probably l...