Jackie Kay

Jackie Kay - Reality, Reality

A short story outing with some beautiful moments but overall patchy quality

(Picador) In the wake of 2010’s fantastic memoir Red Dust Road and last year’s poetry collection Fiere, this short story outing has some beautiful moments in it, and Jackie Kay’s trademark compassion for her characters is intact, but the quality of…

StAnza 2012 international poetry festival highlights

Appearances include Jackie Kay and Joe Dunthorne

It always helps a festival event to have some kind of theme in order to bring together many different strands and give the whole shebang a proper focus. Perhaps spoilt for choice, the organisers of StAnza (aka Scotland’s Poetry festival) have gone for…

Aye Write! Glasgow Book Festival 2011

Candia McWilliam and Jackie Kay among highlights of literary festival

This is the sixth year of the Aye Write Glasgow Book Festival, a celebration of reading, writing and storytelling with events by writers from all over Scotland. The festival is once again being held in the stunning Mitchell Library with a packed program…

Glasgay! 2010 highlights

Glasgow festival celebrates LGBT relationships

Panic Patterns Award winning Glasgow-based authors Zoé Strachan and Louise Welsh have collaborated on a gripping thriller in which two lovers witness sudden changes in bird migration patterns that herald impending disaster. The suspenseful exploration…

Jackie Kay: Finding Family

Red Dust Road is a remarkable account full of passion and humour

The ideas of belonging and identity are at the very core of what it means to be human, but those themes become much more complex when the person in question is adopted. The adopted person’s search for their biological parents is a familiar narrative…

Nick Cave, Jackie Kay and Alan Warner set for Dundee Literary Festival 2010

Watch out Edinburgh, there’s a new kid on the east coast block. Well, OK, chances are Dundee’s bookish extravaganza might never quite reach the exalted status of the capital’s world-beating literary fiesta but it’s making a very strong case for itself…

Jackie Kay - Red Dust Road

(Picador) Those familiar with Jackie Kay’s poetry and fiction will know it exudes a uniquely uplifting and rib-tickling form of optimism, and that general ambience also pervades this wonderfully engaging memoir. Kay was born in Edinburgh to a…

Books hitlist

Imprint A strong looking line-up for this East Ayrshire book festival with the likes of James Kelman, James Robertson and Jackie Kay in attendance. Various venues, Sat 7–14 Nov. James Ellroy Borders Books and GFT, Glasgow, Thu 5 Nov…

Neil Astley & Pamela Robertson-Pearce - In Person: 30 Poets

POETRY DVD/BOOK (Bloodaxe) Tucked inside the book of the same name comes a smart pair of DVDs which platform the depth and range which poetry publisher Bloodaxe have been offering us for three decades. In Person is a celebration of the intimacy that…

Alistair Findlay (ED) - 100 Favourite Scottish Football Poems

POETRY 100 Favourite Scottish Football Poems (Luath) When it comes to transferring the beautiful game into the arts sphere, all we can see is a litany of own goals. Can you remember a half-decent football film? No, Escape to Victory doesn’t count…

Jackie Kay - Trumpet (1998)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

Scotland’s writers are a cheeky lot when it comes to sampling. Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner couldn’t move for E’d-up Face scribes wielding references to acid house. The lilting tones of folk balladry drape the narrative voice of Sunset Song. My own…