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Linda Gillard

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  1. Linda Gillard
    I've written reading guides for all 3 of my novels which I can email, but the books that provoke most discussion are EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY (which deals with the relationship between mental illness and creativity) and - if you're prepared for a blood-on-the-carpet type discussion :eek2: - A LIFETIME BURNING.
  2. Linda Gillard
    SCRUPLES was the first novel about sex and shopping, I think. "Scruples" was a bug store. I think Bridget Jones was actually a backlash - she was a wimpy heroine who wasn't "having it all" and was taken to female hearts because of that. If you recall it was a journalist's satirical newspaper column before it was a book. But chick-lit - in the sense of books about women, their jobs, their friends and their chaotic sex lives - goes way back before the 90s. But before then young women in fiction weren't portrayed as hapless victims and there wasn't that much comedy. (Does that perhaps mean it wasn't chick-lit? Is chick-lit by definition funny?) As a product of the feminist 60s and 70s women writers were keen to portray women as successful, powerful, sexually self-determining. All the stuff that produced COSMOPOLITAN magazine.
  3. Linda Gillard
    I can just about remember the beginning of chick-lit. Wasn't it SCRUPLES by Judith Krantz? Around 1978? I read very little chick-lit, mostly just stuff written by my friends. I doubt you'll have heard of her but there's a Scottish chick-lit writer called Erica Munro and I recommend her DATING GAMES. (I'm afraid the cover is as awful as the title, but take no notice) It's chick-lit with brains, wit and a moral dimension. She also writes as Lucy Hepburn and I recommend CLICKING HER HEELS for another witty, intelligent take on a daffy subject - ie shoes. Premise = vengeful boyfriend sells heroine's entire shoe collection on Ebay. Heroine sets off on globe-trotting quest to get them all back. Sounds naff but it's actually quite moving when you read all the stories attached to the shoes.
  4. Linda Gillard
    Thanks Ceinwenn. I've left a comment on your blog review.
  5. Linda Gillard
    Thanks for the great review, Lexiepiper! Really glad you enjoyed it. There are 2 more novels published. One is a bit similar (EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY) and the other is very, very different (A LIFETIME BURNING.) They both have their admirers!
  6. Linda Gillard
    Thanks, Gyre and Chrissy. Remember there's Ch 1 of unpublished book 4 on my website. I was wondering whether to post more of it on Facebook. But then I suppose you'd complain I was keeping you waiting for the rest of the book... If you're blubbing about my daughter's comment, Chrissy, how do you think I feel? (And we fought like cat & dog when she was a teenager.) She's missed author events of mine for all sorts of reasons - I was on Skye, she was at uni in Leeds; I was on the mainland, she was abroad. It's taken years to get us together for an event and I'm so glad it was the Edinburgh Festival. I think I was quite lucky she didn't jump up on to the stage and deck one of the judges. She works for the National Theatre of Scotland and if I could afford her I'd give her a job as my PA.
  7. Linda Gillard
    I can't remember if I've said this before but it probably bears saying again... As a writer without a publisher's PR budget - as a writer without even a publisher now! - I'm totally dependent on getting my books out there myself, trying to stir up interest for the ones in print and the ones still in manuscript. You can have little idea just what reader support means to authors under these very difficult & depressing circumstances. Every review, every PM and of course every book sale counts. So I love these forums and will continue to promote them and contribute to them as much as I can because I think they are such a positive force in the book world and such a tremendous support to struggling writers, published and unpublished. Hooray for BCF!
  8. Linda Gillard
    Nope, I'm trying to keep all the balls in the air, Michelle - Facebook, guest blogs, BCF and RISI. Needless to say I'm not getting much fiction written. The latest guest blog is up now http://tinyurl.com/la3v28 I didn't win so it came out kinda quirky...
  9. Linda Gillard
    Btw, don't know if any of you are following me on Facebook (I took the plunge!) but I just posted some photos of the Book Festival event on my fan page. Facebook is probably the best place to keep up with my book news now.
  10. Linda Gillard
    I'm guest blogging later today with the 2nd part about the award event and I think you'll find it quite amusing. (And the jokes are on me.) It was harder to write a piece because I'd lost but I'd committed myself to it, win or lose. I'll post the link when the blog goes up.
  11. Linda Gillard
    You beat me to it Chrissy! Thanks I hadn't seen that article!
  12. Linda Gillard
    Sorry everyone, but I have to disappoint you. Mandy Haggith's novel THE LAST BEAR won. She's a friend of mine and a very good writer, so it wasn't so bad losing to her. 2 of the judges let it be known to me that it had been a very hard decision to make and I got the impression it wasn't exactly a unanimous decision anyway (as is often the case with book awards. Sometimes they go with everyone's 2nd choice because the judges can't agree on a first choice. That's true even of the Booker.) But I had a great time at the reception afterwards meeting some really interesting people from the Forestry Commission who sponsored the award. And they'd read STAR GAZING! They loved it. One of the judges had also read EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY, so as the wine and the compliments flowed, I almost forgot I hadn't won. It was a great networking session and I also had my husband and daughter there. This was the first time my daughter had ever seen me at an author event. It was great to be short-listed and a dream come true to be at the Edinburgh Book Festival with a pass to get me into the Authors' Tent!! (We had our own portaloo - like the Queen!)! So now it's nose-to-the-grindstone time and back to the work in progress. You guys need more books to read.......
  13. Linda Gillard
    Cheers, Michelle! (ALB has lost me 2 friends. It was nearly 3, but we made up!) I was told by my agent I'd never get a US or German edition because of the subject matter. What fascinates me is, there are bookcases full of misery memoirs which sell in shedloads and they contain far more shocking things than ALB. Would readers have been as shocked (or moved) by ALB if it had been (auto)biography? Is it possible ALB is more shocking because it's fiction? If so, why?!
  14. Linda Gillard
    Help! Can someone remind you what you type to hide spoilers? It's months since I've done it and can't remember!
  15. Linda Gillard
    Gyre, you totally "got" what I was trying to do with ALB! Thanks very much for your review. For all its sensational elements, it's basically a book about compassion and that's what I wanted the reader to feel: "There but for the grace of God go I". And for the record: I am not a twin. And I don't have a brother. I'm thinking about starting a discussion thread over on Facebook where I have a fan page. Readers do seem to like discussing these characters (don't we, Chrissy & Chesilbeach? ) but the spoiler highlights must be very frustrating for other forum members.
  16. Linda Gillard
    When promoting this book I did have to try to describe it and of course I had to do that without giving too much away about the tortuous plot. This is what I wrote on my website: "I took five women from three generations of the same family and used their interwoven stories as a vehicle for looking at what it has meant to be a woman at different times in the latter half of the 20th Century - what choices, opportunities and limitations they faced. What you could make of your life depended largely, it seemed to me, on when you were born." I also tried to cast some light on the book by quoting this poem on my site, HEREDITY by Thomas Hardy: I am the family face; Flesh perishes, I live on, Projecting trait and trace Through time to times anon, And leaping from place to place Over oblivion. The years-heired feature that can In curve and voice and eye Despise the human span Of durance - that is I; The eternal thing in man, That heeds no call to die.
  17. Linda Gillard
    Thanks Chrissy & Chesilbeach for your very thoughtful replies. I don't think I could have articulated the joys of re-reading nearly so well. I often find myself torn between re-reading something that I enjoyed very much (or read so long ago I can't remember why I loved it) and trying something new. I always feel I ought to read something new, but when you need something that will really hit the spot...? Are there any books that you started to re-read as soon as you finished the last page? I have 2: MANSFIELD PARK and TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES.
  18. Linda Gillard
    You're very welcome, Inver. I think it's probably a different book when you re-read it because you know all the things that are the shock revelations, so you know what the characters really mean when they say things. I don't know if that spoils all the suspense - how would I know? I'm just the author - or if it creates a different kind of suspense, as in "Look out behind you!" or knowing that the Titanic is steaming towards the iceberg. The psychology of re-reading intrigues me. Why does a book still work when we know what will happen?
  19. Linda Gillard
    FYI: I've written a humorous (and not that bitchy) guest blog on Rhapsodyinbooks' book blog on the joys of being shortlisted for book awards. See http://tinyurl.com/m8awfc This is Part 1. Part 2 gets written after Aug 24th when I'll know whether STAR GAZING won.
  20. Linda Gillard

    How nice. Perhaps they were stocking it because of the Aberdeen connection. It would be nice to think so.

  21. Linda Gillard

    Was it for sale? Or was it lying around because someone was reading it? It's not often you come across ALB. I once walked into a caf

  22. Linda Gillard

    I can't find an address for you. Maybe I never had it. Would you like it inscribed for Inver or Diane? (I think it's Diane??)

     

    I now own the copyright to EG and ALB as Transita let them go out of print so I'm hoping if I can find a publisher for book 4 or 5, they might reprint either EG or ALB. (Would love to get a different cover for ALB!)

  23. Linda Gillard

    Thanks a lot! I just posted my thanks on the main board. Seriously - I owe you a book. If you'd like a copy of any of them - for circulation, BookCrossing or your own use - just let me know.

     

    No. 4 was done & dusted a long time ago but I can't find a publisher for it. I'm well on with book 5 now but it's coming very slowly, I think partly because I can't sell no. 4. It feels like unfinished business. :-(

     

    A small Scottish publisher (Strident Publishing) is looking at no. 4 now but I'm not very hopeful. It's a very bad time to try to get someone to take you on.

     

    So I'm doing guest blogs here & there and hoping the Robin Jenkins award might boost sales of SG.

     

    Thanks for your interest!

  24. Linda Gillard
    Thanks, Inver. I definitely owe you a drink. Or maybe a book.
  25. Linda Gillard

    Thanks, Inver!

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