You might not know it yet, and lock-down means your opportunity to explore it fully will be sadly limited when you do, but Thursday is the inaugural Gray Day, the first of what organisers hope will become a significant annual event celebrating the life, work and legacy of Alasdair Gray. The iconic author, illustrator, poet and artist died aged 85 in 2019 and the plan is for Gray Day eventually to assume the same stature as its sort-of-namesake, Bloomsday. Named for Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of James Joyce’s 1922 Modernist masterpiece Ulysses, it’s held in Dublin every June and sees Dubliners attend readings and enjoy street parties and pub crawls dressed as characters from the book. Aside from being a big tourist draw and driver of revenue, it’s taken very seriously as a cultural event: on Bloomsday in 1982, Irish broadcaster RTE marked the centenary of Joyce’s birth with a continuous 30-hour broadcast of the entire text of Ulysses.
Thurso writer celebrates prestigious award By David G Scott
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Updated: 11:38, 17 February 2021
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Hazel Knox, a childrenâs occupational therapist from Thurso, was one of 11 new writers given a £2000 cash prize by the Scottish Book Trust (SBT) to help boost her career .
Hazel, who now lives in Edinburgh, has been writing picture books and middle grade books for children for six years and has a passion for humour â shamelessly harvesting material from her two children.
Thurso writer Hazel Knox could not believe it when she received a call informing her that she s won the award.
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The new writers will receive £2,000 each (Ryan Phillips/PA)
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The Scottish Book Trust has awarded 11 new writers a £2,000 cash prize to help boost their careers.
With funding from Creative Scotland, the charity selected recipients of its New Writers Awards from authors and poets who had not yet published a full-length book or collection.
The judging panel included Scots Makar Jackie Kay and authors Tendai Huchu, Janice Galloway and Denise Mina.
Favourite childhood read? I loved Joan Aiken’s Arabel’s Raven. There was something wonderful about this great anarchist, in the shape of a raven, coming to disturb the cosy suburban peace. Mortimer was a real punk. I loved his “Nevermore” answer to everything. Arabel was also incredibly cool, mainly because she levelled such clear-eyed, straightforward questions at all these shady, complicated characters.
What was the first book to make an impact on you? Lorrie Moore’s Like Life. I first read it in my early 20s while living in Buenos Aires, on the 13th floor of a tower block – which felt quite edgy and New York-ish, and therefore a perfect fit for Moore’s angsty, urban stories. Her characters seemed at one remove from ordinary life and relationships, and so conscious of their fragile hold on things. It was the first time I realised you could write very comically about something immensely sad. I also think Lorrie Moore has some of the best one-liners in contempora