October

29th October 2019

UNATTRACTIVE CREATURES: A Field Study of Michael Gove, Boswell and other migratory scavengers.

From The Drouth Issue 60 I make no doubt, Sir, but you consider me as your very good friend; although some people – and those, too, not destitute of wisdom – will […]
28th October 2019

A Queer Thing Happened on the way to the Stonewall Riots – by Helen Wright

The promo for Roland Emmerich’s movie Stonewall featured a buff and traditionally attractive white, cisgender man rocking up in New York and seemingly helming the 1969 riots which are credited with kicking off the gay liberation movement in the US…
25th October 2019

‘The sense of helplessness is more of a choice than a reality, in my opinion’ – James Kelman in dialogue with Noam Chomsky

James Kelman: As in the UK there are many people in the United States who are ashamed and outraged by the actions of their government; some repudiate these actions, try to work against them. There is a wider sense of helplessness...
25th October 2019

James Kelman Margarined : Class, Language and the Avoidance of Butter – By Simon Kövesi

Ian Rankin is a rare novelist in admitting that his decision over what sort of fiction he would write was predicated upon a desire for paternal approval...
25th October 2019

‘James Kelman, the Public and Pubic Wigs: By Simon Kövesi

Kelman’s reading was lively, entrancing at times, and the writer was pretty much at his performing best. In questions he was voluble, but as awkward as ever, maintaining his line over language, class and marginalisation, even in this, one of the most crassly populist, conservative of events on the literary calendar…
25th October 2019

James Kelman

James Kelman’s politics are difficult. They make difficulties for his readers. They make difficulties for authorities, producers, editors, publishers, and broadcasters. They make difficulties for the writer himself...
16th October 2019

Collage Before Cubism Exhibition

Now entering its final weeks (ending 27th October) the Cut and Paste Exhibition at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is a must-see. Its generous, inclusive take on collage extends […]
14th October 2019

WHAT MY BODY CAN’T REMEMBER

For Farah Saleh, Palestinian dancer living in Scotland, the body is an archive. In our heads, limbs and torsos, even in our muscles, tendons, bones and organs, are registered whole […]
10th October 2019

‘We’re just big bullies…’ Gregory Burke’s Black Watch By David Archibald

A typical definition of the concept ‘Artistic License’ would outline the notion that the artist may be perceived as having freedom to distort some aspect of their subject in order to bring attention to, criticise, or satirize it...