Latest Successes

The worst part of a writer's life is learning to deal with rejection letters. But to achieve success it is necessary to submit work for publication. The risk is rejection, the reward is publication.


Earlier this year I read an inspiring essay by writer Linda Cracknell. In this essay she described how she set about systematically submitting her work. She was determined and it paid off. I took her lead and began a submissions frenzy, I studied markets, I bought my envelopes, stamps and International Reply Coupons. Every time I received a rejection I would send the story out again. Here are some of the results.

Winning

A memoir piece Winning was commended in the Leaf Memoir Competition and published in the anthology Foresight with Hindsight. You can read Winning here.

Highland Clearance

Earlier this year I was inspired by Anne Redpath's painting The Mantelpiece. I wrote a wee story called Highland Clearance. Northwords Now. a fine Scottish literary paper published the story in its summer issue. You can now read it online here.

The Girl in the Burgundy Boots

Many years ago, when I worked for Shell Oil, I spend the very cold months of February and March in Budapest. Every day I walked from my five star hotel to the Shell Office. On the way I passed a concrete building with covered cloisters. In one of these cloisters lived a tramp who huddled against below-freezing temperatures under mounds of blankets. This story was inspired by him.

The story was published in the Autumn issue of Crannog.

Twenty Five Feet Behind

Woman, even strong women, can too easily fall a few steps behind their partners without realising it. I entered Twenty Five Feet Behind in the Mountaineering Council of Scotland Mountain Story competition and was awarded third prize. It is featured on their website here.