Wishbox
March 12, 2010 06 AM
This is a piece I wrote for the Edinburgh event Cachín Cachán Cachunga.Wishbox“It’s not fair, is it?” the woman said rhetorically. “The bankers get billions of pounds of our tax-money to bail them out, then they go and pay themselves billions in bonuses. It’s ridiculous,” she declared — that ultimate expression of Scottish disapproval. Roy
Gold Star
February 26, 2010 03 AM
| stamp fiction
Life out here suited the sheriff. The buzzards took care of all the paperwork.
At the Wheel
February 26, 2010 03 AM
| stamp fiction
Suddenly the captain regretted choosing his narcoleptic cousin for a crewmate.
Sacred Stiff
February 26, 2010 03 AM
| stamp fiction
The priest stood before his congregation. He was afraid of them.
Vacation
February 26, 2010 03 AM
| stamp fiction
After two weeks of camping together, it was time for the family to go home. None of them wanted to.
Dereliction
February 26, 2010 03 AM
| stamp fiction
The postman dropped his cigarette into the box and ran away.
Parking
February 24, 2010 03 AM
| postcard fiction
The three young men, dressed for a night out, watched as their friend tried, again, to park his car. They missed the show, but it turned out to be the best night of their lives.
The Linesman
February 23, 2010 03 AM
| postcard fiction, stamp fiction
I've been away from writing any new fiction for a while — trying to promote Finitude and produce the DIY Book podcast — so I'm starting small, practicing, gearing up to write another novel. This page contains that practice: short stories sometimes referred to as "postcard fiction". In fact, some of them will be so short I'm going to call them "stamp fiction".
Peg-Arm
March 2, 2009 02 PM
| audiobook, short story
Another story from the “You Don’t Have to Make This Stuff Up, Just Extrapolate” department. If you listen to the podcast, please forgive my hideous approximation of a Scots accent!
Doug and Dug
March 2, 2009 02 PM
| short story
Here’s another story from the second edition of Dunderheid.
Architect of Doom
March 2, 2009 02 PM
| short story
A couple of years ago, I worked with some friends on a ‘zine we called Dunderheid. Seeing as there were very few copies and I lost the final page layout, I figured I’d post my stories from it here...
Polarity
March 2, 2009 02 PM
| short story
I wrote this story to submit to a short story competition in 2003. When I wrote this, I was in the middle of writing Idea in Stone. I didn’t want to completely leave that world, so I had fun by taking a secondary character and giving him a story of his own.
Mixers
March 2, 2009 02 PM
| short story
I wrote the first of these stories and sent it to my best friend Mark, and within a day he wrote back to me saying, um, did I mind, but he’d been inspired to write the opposite story. Of course I didn’t mind: I love writing with Cosgrove, and liked his side of the story. You’ll see what I mean…
P.S. My mum read these, and felt sad that they only captured one certain possibility (trying not to give away the stories here), so she write a third one!
P.S. My mum read these, and felt sad that they only captured one certain possibility (trying not to give away the stories here), so she write a third one!
The Michelangelo Query
March 2, 2009 02 PM
| short story
Whenever a book hits the Ground Zero of public opinion and turns into a nuclear blast, I always feel compelled to go in after the fact with my Geiger-counter to see what all the fuss is about.
When I wrote this, that book was The DaVinci Code. Every damned person I talked to was reading it or had just finished it — so I read it, too. I have to admit, it was a potboiler. I finished it within the span of a few days, whenever I got a chance. It’s mystifying to me, though, that a book can be so compelling, yet so very bad. The characterisations, the descriptions, the way elements of the story were introduced — it was a train-wreck of a thing. I kept thinking about it, though. It’s a systematic deconstruction of Christianity. I grew up in that tradition, and, although I left it a long time ago, I still felt challenged by this story’s argument, and had to do some thinking and research of my own. In the process, I discovered that the author’s research is terrible, shoddy stuff. When Christian and secular scholars can agree that a piece of work is devoid of any truth, you know something’s up.
I’m not a proponent of fan fiction or other derivative work, but I felt compelled to digest my experience of The DaVinci Code by writing a story of my own, a bit of a piss-take, as they say here.
When I wrote this, that book was The DaVinci Code. Every damned person I talked to was reading it or had just finished it — so I read it, too. I have to admit, it was a potboiler. I finished it within the span of a few days, whenever I got a chance. It’s mystifying to me, though, that a book can be so compelling, yet so very bad. The characterisations, the descriptions, the way elements of the story were introduced — it was a train-wreck of a thing. I kept thinking about it, though. It’s a systematic deconstruction of Christianity. I grew up in that tradition, and, although I left it a long time ago, I still felt challenged by this story’s argument, and had to do some thinking and research of my own. In the process, I discovered that the author’s research is terrible, shoddy stuff. When Christian and secular scholars can agree that a piece of work is devoid of any truth, you know something’s up.
I’m not a proponent of fan fiction or other derivative work, but I felt compelled to digest my experience of The DaVinci Code by writing a story of my own, a bit of a piss-take, as they say here.
Not in Our Backyard
March 2, 2009 02 PM
| short story
We did a special night of Argot, the reading series I used to host, to raise money for Amnesty International and Scottish PEN. This is the piece I wrote for that night.
The Half-Dead House
March 2, 2009 02 PM
| audiobook, short story
A tale from an Edinburgh tenement...
Going On
March 2, 2009 02 PM
| audiobook, short story
Every year the Toronto Star has a story writing contest, and it’s got a big, fat prize of $10,000. How could I not send something in? But the kinds of things I usually write, well, they’re not your average Sunday morning cup-of-coffee-and-a-paper fare. So I decided to stretch myself, to write something a little more Oprah-riffic…
Handsome Devil
March 2, 2009 02 PM
| audiobook, short story
I was asked to co-curate a night in a reading series in 2000. The series is called Clit Lit (I know, I blush every time I mention it). It tends, as you might have guessed, to run along lesbian/feminist themes. This one night, though, was to be a men’s writing night. I suggested the name “Spunky”, and we ran with it. The evening went pretty well, and I got a good response to this piece, which was fun to write. It’s hard to get very deep with only a thousand words — all that a ten-minute slot allows. So I thought I’d have some fun…
Lighthearted
March 2, 2009 01 PM
| audiobook, short story
After doubleZero came out, I had the good fortune to do my first readings. Being a former actor, I like being in front of people, sharing work with them. Writing novels is a solitary business, and it’s hard to know if you’re on the right track sometimes, so it’s good to have a chance to present material and get an instant response. When I was asked to do my first reading for the Toronto Dollar Reading Series, I wrote my first piece that was specifically for presentation, instead of reading a disjointed chunk of book. And they gave me the series’ second prize for it, too, which was sweet.
