Category Archives: Fiction

Of earth and sea

Posted on March 16, 2018 by Jamie Jauncey

On Monday night I returned from Melbourne after a month spent mainly in New Zealand, the first ten days running Dark Angels workshops in and around Auckland, the following two weeks touring the North and South Islands. This is one … Continue reading →

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An honest opinion

Posted on November 17, 2017 by Jamie Jauncey

In the mail last week I received a parcel from France. It contained a paperback novel with an attractive jacket featuring bands of medieval illumination enclosing the image of a lone fortress on a hilltop. I knew at once what … Continue reading →

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Spanish Crossings

Posted on July 17, 2017 by Jamie Jauncey

A couple of years ago, on our advanced course in Spain, my Dark Angels partner John Simmons woke up one morning with a line in his head. It stayed with him and today, in summer 2017, it’s the opening sentence … Continue reading →

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The Gutenbergs

Posted on June 10, 2016 by Jamie Jauncey

No one would deny that Gutenberg is a name with which to conjure. Johannes Gutenberg transformed society with his invention of mechanical printing in the 1440s. Half a millenium later, in 1971, Michael Hart, an American student, wangled himself time … Continue reading →

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The stories we tell

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

Here is a story. Fifteen years ago, Catherine Lockerbie, then the literary editor of The Scotsman, was appointed director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. For several years I had regularly written book reviews for her. We had also sat … Continue reading →

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Be prepared

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

It’s nearly book festival time again – by which I mean the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Every August, Charlotte Square Gardens sprout canvas and are transformed into a kind of intellectual carnival of some 800 events that seem between them … Continue reading →

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Publishing pains

Posted on May 29, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

Longstanding readers of A Few Kind Words will be familiar with the saga of The Artefact, the third in a series of young adult novels, with which I have been grappling for a number of years. To wind back a … Continue reading →

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Competing realities

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

This time last week, all being well, we would have been preparing to receive the novelist Philip Pullman as our guest speaker for the Dark Angels masterclass at Merton College, Oxford. Sadly, all was not well. Poor Philip had been … Continue reading →

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Winter spell

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

The last four days have felt like real winter. The thermometer has hardly risen above zero since I arrived here. The cold bites my cheeks as soon as I step outside and the snow crunches underfoot. Through the picture windows … Continue reading →

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Lost and found

Posted on July 4, 2014 by Jamie Jauncey

Two years ago I wrote some stories for a well-known hotel on the Ayrshire coast, the one acquired just the other day by an American collector of golf courses, a big, suspiciously blond billionaire – oh, all right then, the … Continue reading →

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