Bute Scribblers

First of all, many congratulations to our neighbour on the Isle of Bute, Anne Charnock. Last week Anne deservedly won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for her novel Dreams Before the Start of Time. Only a few weeks earlier she picked up the BSFA Award for her novella ‘The Enclave’. Here is her website, where these works and others are described.

We celebrated last weekend with dinner at the house of Anne and Garry Charnock, where we were joined by Suze and Matt Hill. Here are most of us before the dinner, while there was still light on the loch outside the house (it is somewhere behind the camera, alas, but it is a sensationally lovely view — try to imagine it):

Matt Hill, Anne Charnock, Nina Allan, Chris Priest (photo by Garry Charnock)

We are coming to the end of July, in what is probably our last summer as full Europeans. The dread chaos of Brexit has induced a feeling of torpor about making entries on this website: I don’t want to keep going on about it (or about the disgusting moron in the White House), but Brexit and Trump together present such major concerns that it sometimes feels one should write about nothing else. However, forcing that deeply disagreeable stuff aside, let me update the news of my books, and a few of the personal appearances that are being arranged to promote them.

My next novel, An American Story, is due to be published in the UK and France in September, and around the same time I shall be working in Paris on a new novel (I have already started work on it, but it is presently untitled). This is fortuitously set in Paris — honestly, I was planning it before the chance of a residency at Les Récollets came along, but the coincidence could not be more propitious. Here are the plans at the moment:

Monday 3rd September, I will be in conversation with Neil Williamson at Waterstones in Glasgow (Argyle Street branch). Time: 18:30 to 20:00. Admission is free, but advance booking is essential.

Wednesday 5th September I will be available for interviews, etc., while in London. (Hope springs eternal.) In the evening:

Wednesday 5th September I will be talking with Glyn Morgan at Waterstones in Gower Street, London WC1. Time: 18:30 to 20:30. Booking must be made in advance, and sales close on 4th September. Tickets are £8 (£6 for students or Waterstones card holders).

An American Story will be published in the UK on 6th September, and will also be available internationally in the English language as an ebook from Gollancz. The publication date for the French translation (Conséquences d’une disparition) has not yet been confirmed to me, but is likely to appear at roughly the same time. Cover images of both editions appear on this website, below.

From 6th September until 10th October I shall be living and working in France, based in Paris.

Sunday 16th September, there is a meeting and book signing at Salon Fnac, in Paris. Time: 14:00 to 16:00. At present I have no information about ticketing (if any). I will update this page as details are clarified.

Weekend of 29th and 30th September I will be Guest of Honour at Les Adventuriales, in Ménétrol.

Friday 5th October, there is a meeting and book signing at La zone du dehors, in Bordeaux. Time: 17:00. Again, at the moment I have no information about advance ticketing (if any). I will update this page as details are clarified.

There is also a planned signing at Librairie Critic, in Rennes — but date and time have yet to be agreed.

Although I shall be travelling back to the UK during the second week in October, I will be returning to France for the Utopiales Festival, in Nantes, 31st October to 5th November.

Before then, an event is being planned here on the Isle of Bute, a conversation with Anne Charnock. No date has yet been set, but is likely to be before I go to Nantes.

Next year — (it still seems an acceptably safe distance in the future, but these things come along in the end …)

I will be at Ytterbium, the Easter convention at Heathrow, London, from 19th to 22nd April 2019. My daughter Elizabeth Priest will also be there, to celebrate the publication by Luna Press of Lizzy’s first three (yes, THREE) novels in her Troutespond series.

In August Nina and I will be attending Dublin 2019, the Irish world sf convention, 15th to 19th August.

At the end of the same month I will be present at the Hastings Literary Festival, 30th August to 1st September. Details of all these events will be updated on this page from time to time, and given sole entries closer to the dates.

I think that’s about everything for now, which seems extravagantly too much for anyone. I suppose I should be slowing down, ‘taking things more easily’ … but I have never seen the point of retiring, even at the advanced age I seem to have reached, so on we go …

I look forward to meeting you at one or more of these events. A bientôt!