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FEATURE BREAKING OUT


EMERGING AUTHORS


GENERATION NEXT W


ith bookshops closed for significant chunks of the past year and literary festivals moving online, the publishing landscape has become more challenging than ever for new writers in Scotland.


In the words of Jenny Brown, literary agent and chair of the Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival, it has been “a much tougher year for emerging writers without the abilit to meet others and network in the usual ways, at bookshop events and festivals.” She expands: “The normal showcases for new writers haven’t been available: online festivals have tended to invite established writers, rather than début writers, in order to atract audiences.” This is corroborated by writer and festival programmer Lee Randall’s report Exploring the Post-Pandemic Landscape of Scottish Literary Festivals: Where Do We Go From Here?, in which she states that for festivals, “an immediate reaction to unprecedented hardship is to book the biggest names possible in pursuit of hits”. Despite this, Scotland’s literary sector has found ways to continue promoting emerging voices. The Dr Gavin Wallace


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Fellowship, which is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland, supports mid-career and established writers to develop creative work during a year-long residency. Children’s writer Maisie Chan was appointed as the 2020 Dr Gavin Wallace Fellow. She feels the past year has been “difficult” for emerging authors, explaining: “Everything moved online, which meant that you had to learn a new set of skills, such as making videos for talks and schools. It’s hard to create ‘authentic’ connections online.” Being awarded the Fellowship “took a huge weight off my mind in terms of financial securit… I could just get on with writing”. During this time, she worked on her début Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths (to be published by Piccadilly Press in June), as well as writing two chapter books in her new Tiger Warrior series with Hachete Children’s, inspired by East Asian folklore, and two early readers titles for Big Cat Collins.


Chan says: “It feels like my career is taking off like a rocket ever since I was awarded the Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship. Moving to Scotland was one of the best things for my writing career. It’s small enough that people know each other, and the


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