A portrait of Scottish writer and poet James Andrew By publisher, Erik Empson I meet James in a cosy eatery in Nairn, and not surprisingly we quickly get talking about books. If you read, he says, and James has certainly read widely, you are never bored. There is always another world to discover. I want […]

A portrait of Edinburgh crime fiction writer Robert McNeill by publisher, Erik Empson In an unlikely alliance with my parents, who didn’t have a natural affinity with the mores of the grammar school I went to, my teachers instilled in me a deep-seated fear that should I not knuckle down and do as told, my […]

A literary portrait of Belfast based crime author Robert McCracken by Erik Empson Robert McCracken is the last author I meet in the Irish leg of our literary tour. I left Carrickfergus and spent the night in a small coastal town on Red Bay, before the next day climbing Trostan, a modest peak at 550m […]

A misty portrait of crime writer Linda Hagan by publisher, Erik Empson From the outskirts of Dublin I head north, intending to go to Belfast, but something I can’t explain stops me from crossing the threshold that was and wasn’t, is and isn’t, will be and won’t be, a border, and instead I U-turn and […]

A portrait of Irish writer Anne Crosse by publisher, Erik Empson One might, on arriving in Ireland for the first time, disembarking the ferry as I did in Rosslare, think that one had got on the wrong boat and landed in Holland or such like, given the orderliness of the place – trimmed verges, perfectly […]