Ali Bacon's Blog, page 6

More Fiction and Photography (#PhotographyinFiction 3)

This month I’ve unexpectedly stumbled on two novels featuring photography to add to my growing  blog category ‘photography in fiction’. These writers are less well-known than Theroux or Boyd but there are points of similarity worth mentioning.

[image error]Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children which I was given as a gift, follows William Boyd’s idea in Sweet Caress of using ‘found photographs’ and building a story around them. However Ransom Riggs has chosen a very particular set of ‘trick’ photogra...

For Burns Night: D. O. Hill, Rabbie Burns and the Lass of Ballochmyle

[image error]D. O. Hill in romantic pose. Image courtesy Preus Museum

Like most Scots of his generation, D.O. Hill was  a great fan of both Rabbie Burns and Sir Walter Scott. Several of his and Robert Adamson’s compositions recreated characters from Scott’s novels (like this one from The Antiquary) and he was an illustrator of both writers, spending quite some time in Ayrshire prior to publishing a collection of engravings called  The Land of Burns.  He was also a lover of Burns’ songs and poetry.

But alt...

The Truth about Archie and Pye by Jonathan Pinnock

[image error]Jonathan Pinnock

Today I’m delighted to welcome again someone whom I first interviewed here when my blog was a mere babe in arms. Since then he has completed four (?) books that I can think of to my measley two. But the reason (or excuse) for his appearance today is publication of his very latest offering – a comic mathematical thriller The Truth About Archie and Pye. It’s not often I describe a book as a total blast, but if you want to see the impression it made on me, my review is here.

Wel...

History, Fiction and Archaeology. Nancy Jardine talks about Scotland in the First Century A.D.

I have a soft spot for books about Roman Britain which I think has more to do with reading Rosemary Sutcliffe than studying Tacitus (yes, I did that too, once upon a time!) So it’s a pleasure to welcome Scottish writer Nancy Jardine to talk about researching this fascinating era. 

[image error]Thank you so much for inviting me to visit your blog today, Ali. I’m delighted to be able to share my research situation.

When there’s one main text to study for a historical episode lasting the best part of seven y...

The Missing List: a memoir by Clare Best

Memoir is a genre which I like to dip into from time to time, my favourites to date being Tim Lott’s The Scent of Dried Roses and Lorna Sage’s Bad Blood – both moving and memorable in different ways.

[image error]Today I’m inviting Clare Best, Linen Press’ latest author, to talk about her memoir The Missing List published  last month. The Missing List is another book that will be very hard to forget, combining as it does fluid and articulate prose with the shocking brutality of child abuse uncovered in th...

Past meets present at Dunfermline’s new arts festival: #iamoutwith

[image error]The old home town was not looking the same when I arrived at Dunfermline Bus Station (why do they keep moving it?)  last Saturday morning for the second  Outwith Festival. ‘Reminds me of the Gala Day,‘ said my old school friend Marilyn when we eventually caught up with each other, and yes, there was that buzz in the air, not to mention the flags ( or bunting as we call it south of the Tweed).

[image error]Compared to a year ago (when I visited for a one day history conference) the place was jumping.  Fire...

Novella in Flash – Three Men (and one writer) on the Edge

[image error]A place at the flash fiction  table 

Last year  when I noticed a new competition from Bath Flash Fiction called Novella in Flash (2019 entry here), I thought straight away of my St Andrews 2016 collection ‘In Sunshine and in Shadow’ which with some stringent editing could  have qualified.  But in the end I was too busy expanding this into the novel which became In the Blink of an Eye  to think about condensing it into something smaller – and so the moment passed.

[image error]Calum Kerr on the flash ficti...

Historical Fiction: The Sir Walter Scott Prize

So now I have read two of the novels shortlisted for the 2018 Sir Walter Scott Prize which seems like a good time to tell you what I think.

[image error]I was attracted to Sugar Money when I saw it was set in Grenada because a) I had never read a novel set in Grenada and b) had recently been there, not that I had left with very much idea of its history other than the notorious ‘Leap’ incident which took place a century before the events depicted in Sugar Money. I’d also read both of Jane Harris’ previous...

Who needs another Literature Festival? We do!

In a world full of cultural offerings where the smallest village has its own literary weekend, you might wonder if here, right between the hip and cool Bristol Litfest (by the way when do we get to see this year’s programme, guys?)  and the star-studded Bath and Cheltenham extravaganzas, we actually need another.

[image error]Hawkesbury Upton, by the people, for the people!

But let’s face it, the commuter-belt/countryside now known as South Gloucestershire has never been sure of its identity or even, (rem...

Love and Ruin by Paula McLain

Ever since I became embroiled in what turned out to be fictional biography (and turned into In the Blink of an Eye), I’ve been fascinated by how different authors approach this genre. I was therefore delighted to accept a review copy of Love and Ruin by Paula McLain, the story of American journalist Martha Gellhorn and her marriage to Ernest Hemingway.

The book has a slightly stuttering start as we see Franco taking power when Martha is twenty seven, then dive back to her early life.  As the...