Fences we Build
More from the big box o’stuff. I don’t talk about this much because it’s proper cringe, but back when I was an undergrad at Aberdeen in 1999, I self-published a little chapbook of poems, sold a few, and handed the rest out to luminaries of the Scottish lit scene whenever I could.
A lot of the poems had been published in magazines and journals but looking at them today they are really bad, overwrought teenage nonsense. I was proud of them at the time but if I were ever to have a collected poems, I’d argue strongly that none of them be included. I shared one poem here in the early days of this Substack, and more of an explanation of it here. This poem is probably the best, so you can imagine how bad the others are.
The biggest cringe part is that I handed copies to some of the biggest names in Scottish writing. I sincerely hope each and every one of them chucked it in the bin the second I turned my back.
Still, it was a step on the path and was definitely a way in the early days, when the internet was still in its infancy, of getting my name out there. I even managed to get a (badly written) mention in the Press and Journal, the local paper. I have no idea how I did that. I didn’t even remember that I had until I found the cutting.
I blame the Limousin Bulls, they sound like a French rugby league club.
This is out, the perennial fascination of Scottish lighthouses, RLS. I wondered if Michael Pedersen is related to that other grumble factory Roy Pedersen. This was on bookshop.org:
"In amongst this sturdy crop, my new (and debut) novel Muckle Flugga. It’s a novel of landscape and lore, old bonds up against new, strange surfacings in the deep and celestial secrets. At the belly of it all are the people who dwell there, denizens both old and new. The, often painful, love between the lighthouse keeper and his otherworldly son, Ouse, is put to the ultimate test by the arrival of a visitor who sweeps in from the capital full of big promises and sensational stories. The lighthouse that sits upon the northern hump of this rugged island is muckle and massive – shades of Gormenghast with a sliver of something more sentient still. The less said about the lingering ghost of Robert Louis Stevenson the better.
Long live love & lighthouses,Michael Pedersen x"
https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/muckle-flugga-by-michael-pedersen-review-an-extraordinary-first-novel-5123813
Shows your determination and dedication to writing! Well done that youngster.