Paper Thistle Author Insights

Author Insight: Dr Malcolm Alexander: Isolation, responsibility, and the small dramas that matter

Island memoirs get sold as a cleanse. Malcolm Alexander refuses. On Eday, isolation isn’t a[...]

Author Insight: Women, authority, and expertise in Lin Anderson’s crime writing

Anderson refuses the genre’s demand that women in power apologise for it. Her authority comes[...]

Author Insight: Why Callum McSorley’s tartan noir has teeth, not tartan branding

“Tartan noir” is a label that lets readers taste Scottish bleakness without swallowing the politics.[...]

Author Insight: How Iain Banks wrote masculinity without reassurance

Banks did not write men to be redeemed. He wrote them operating normally, convinced of[...]

Author Insight: Rewriting the past without asking permission: Sara Sheridan’s fiction

Sheridan treats history as contested ground, not shared heritage. Her fiction refuses nostalgia, centres women[...]

Author Insight: Why James Robertson keeps writing Scotland back into focus

Scotland gets blurred into postcard myth: brave underdog, cosy heritage, selective amnesia. James Robertson writes[...]

Author Insight: Violence, restraint, and realism in C.F. Barrington’s crime fiction

Barrington treats violence as consequence rather than currency. By refusing spectacle, he restores its weight.[...]

Author Insight: Philip Paris and the Scotland that history tried to burn quiet

Scotland sells itself in soft focus, but Philip Paris writes through the varnish. He drags[...]

Author Insight: Why Jenni Fagan’s fiction remains quietly radical

Fagan’s fiction refuses correction. Trauma does not redeem, institutions do not educate, and survival does[...]

Author Insight: Amy Liptrot: Addiction, isolation, and belonging.

Liptrot refuses redemption. Addiction erodes rather than explodes, recovery bores rather than transforms, and belonging[...]