Dark•Heritage: Vikings in America

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Sometimes you just need something different, so in amongst all the bunting and flags we were delighted to see Dark Heritage taking the time to blog about Vikings in America by Graeme Davis. The first book to tackle the subject of the true extent of the Viking discovery and colonisation of the eastern seaboard of America, it's a cracking - if sometimes controversial - read. We think 2012 is going to be Viking-tastic with a new series on BBC by Neil Oliver coming up in the autumn, and Graeme's book is an excellent jumping off point.

eBooks - The first year ...

At the weekend Birlinn celebrated their first year in eBooks, and what an exciting year it has been! Since we launched with 40 titles, we have continued to release digital editions of our titles now until over 150 eBooks are available to download. 

In a year, we’ve sold over 150,000 eBooks, had a Kindle number one bestseller in The Final Curtsey, and seen a revitalisation of our crime backlist with Ken McClure, David Ashton, Gillian Galbraith and Shirley McKay all appearing in the Kindle top 10 at some point in 2011. We’ve partnered in successful, exciting and innovative promotions with companies such as Apple, Starbucks, Kobo and Hi-Arts and sold eBooks all over the world - who knew there were Wojtek fans in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Bob Servant fans in Botswana or McGonagall fans in Korea?

The app!

But we’re not resting on our laurels. This week we launched our very first App, Alexander McCall Smith’s Edinburgh, everything you need to know and more about the bestselling 44 Scotland Street series. It’s a free download with audio clips, extracts, an interactive map, and an exclusive never-before-published short story. 

The Sky's Dark Labyrinth

And we have more Apps in production. We’re currently working with the British Lions for an incredible multi-platform Christmas release, and partnering Stuart Clark with The Science Museum, London for an amazing collaboration on the Sky’s Dark Labyrinth trilogy.

And, of course, we will continue to release more of our titles—a fantastic mix of fiction, poetry, history, sport, humour, current affairs and biographies—as eBooks, all of which are available on the most popular eBook retailers websites (www.amazon.co.uk, www.waterstones.co.uk, www.kobobooks.com and the iBookstore). 

Keep an eye on www.birlinn.co.uk for the latest titles available as eBooks, or find us on Facebook and Twitter!

Birlinn is delighted to announce that Professor Charles Withers, one of the authors of Scotland: Mapping the Nation, has been awarded the Founder's Medal for 2012 of the Royal Geographical Society. The Founder’s Medal is a Royal Medal approved by the Queen, for the encouragement and development of historical and cultural geography, and counts Sir David Attenborough and Sir Ranulph Fiennes amongst previous winners. Charles is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Historical Society, and the Royal Society of Arts.

With his coauthors Christopher Fleet and Margaret Wilkes, Charles created one of the most popular titles published by Birlinn last year, Scotland Mapping the Nation. The book, described by the Times Educational Supplement as ‘elegantly written, thoroughly referenced and exquisitely presented’, tells the history of Scotland from the innovative perspective of maps and map-making.

Congratulations Charles, from everyone at Birlinn!

Donald S. Murray Awarded RLS Fellowship

Birlinn is delighted to announce that Donald S. Murray, author of The Guga Hunters and AndOn This Rock: The Italian Chapel, Orkney has been awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. 

Donald is one of three writers who will be able to spend a month in a self-catering studio apartment at the Hôtel Chevillon in Grez-sur-Loing, at the edge of France’s Forest of Fontainebleau. Robert Louis Stevenson first visited the area in 1875, delighting not only in the place and its community of writers but also meeting his future wife Fanny Osbourne there.

The Fellowship, designed to give writers time and space away from their usual environment, will allow Donald to develop several projects he has in mind both fiction and non-fiction, and we can’t wait to see the results. Well done Donald, from everyone at Birlinn!

Calling all Writers! Imagine The Seven Wonders of Scotland and Win £750

There's still time to enter The Seven Wonders of Scotland competition! And win £750.

Gerry Hassan, one of the judges of the project says, "The project imagines seven wonders of world-class significance in our country. Since none of the ‘wonders’ will exist, the essence of the project is fictional but it is important that they could potentially exist."

"The core idea is that these are physical creations, ones which illuminate what Scotland could be. It is about re-imagining Scotland, about exploring its possible future and creating different landscapes, mindsets and worlds for the reader and public to enter and be stimulated by. Such a rich terrain of different Scotlands aims to encourage people to think imaginatively and in new ways about their country and its future at this important juncture in its history."

Examples might include the idea in the 1990s that Fort William would be turned over to the Hong Kong Chinese to build a new Hong Kong in the Highlands. Or another, still active idea, is sculptor Sandy Stoddart’s huge Ossian project. The first illustrates an outward-looking economically dynamic Scotland, the second a project on a world-scale about a Scottish achievement (the Ossian tales) which changed the world. By looking therefore at physical creations we are exploring mental states, looking to tap into deeper realities, psyches and motivations about Scotland and its future.

If you'd like to enter the competition (winners receive £750 each), please submit one paragraph on your ‘wonder’ and one paragraph on the writing treatment emailed to alison@birlinn.co.uk by 15th April 2012. There is a strong creative-writing element here, so there is no point in describing a wonder in dry technical detail or in the way of a political policy pamphlet. The judges will be Gerry Hassan, Hugh Andrew Managing Director of Birlinn, political writer and journalist David Torrance and Alison Rae of Polygon.

The final pieces will be 5-7,000 words long and winners will be asked to submit their contributions by 14 July 2012. A book will be published in October 2012.

Polygon Signs Macca Biog

Polygon is delighted to announce the signing of Man on the Run by Tom Doyle from Kevin Pocklington at Jenny Brown Associates. The book covers McCartney’s life after The Beatles during the 1970s, a period often thought of as McCartney ‘in the wilderness’ and which featured his time with Wings, his retreat to the Mull of Kintyre and his post-Beatles-split nervous breakdown and multiple drug busts.

Polygon Publishing Director, Neville Moir said, “Tom's new book on Paul McCartney in the 70s, Man on the Run, will be the highlight of our autumn 2013 programme. We are thrilled to have acquired world rights and delighted to be working with a writer of Tom Doyle’s calibre once more.”

Polygon published a very successful new edition of Tom’s bestselling book The Glamour Chase: The Maverick Life of Billy MacKenzie in September 2011.

(Confidentially, we're stupidly excited!)

For a' that jazz - Burns Night 101

Christmas? New Year?! Distant memories my friends. Who’s up for a party, then? I’m up for a party now, frankly, so here comes Burns Night – the 25th January – and the perfect excuse to eat, drink and make very merry. And don’t worry it’s not complicated, you don’t need a kilt and there’s plenty on the menu for the haggis-phobic. (NB it’s actually very nice and you can get vegetarian ones which, according to some, are nicer than the traditional recipe but keep that under your hat.)

If you’re lucky enough to be invited to a proper Burns Supper you might want to take a gift. This year Birlinn produced a smaller version of our bestselling limited edition Tam o’ Shanter, illustrated by Alexander Goudie. At just £25 this edition it will go down a storm with fans of the bard and you can afford to treat yourself to a copy. And if there are going to be younger folks present, a copy of Allan Burnett’s Robert Burns and All That will go down a treat!

If you fancy hosting a Burns Supper or have been asked to take part in one get your hands on Nancy Marshall’s Burns Supper Companion. In simple terms, who’s who and what they need to say. If it’s a big formal do with dancing you might also want to secrete a copy of The Swinging Sporran about your person so your Dashing White Sergeant doesn’t turn into a Gay Gordon. ‘Nuff said.

The starring role of any Burns Supper is, of course, the haggis but there are plenty of other Scots-positive dishes – have a peek at F. Marian MacNeill’s classic The Scots Kitchen or The Stornoway Black Pudding Bible. And if you’ve decided to make whisky part of the evening (hint: strongly advised) Charles MacLean’s Whiskypedia will help you track down something for all palates.

But Burns Night is all about the fabulous Robert Burns and his work. His fame is world wide, as Andy Hall’s beautiful book Touched by Robert Burns shows, or if you want the last word The Best Laid Schemes is a fantastic collection of poetry and prose, incorporating some previously unknown writings by the man himself. A laid-back rebel, we think Burns would have given New Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect - ‘a sly wink to the master’ from twelve of the best contemporary poets around, including the new Scots Makar Liz Lochhead – a big ‘Like’.

So whether it’s haggis in Helsinki or cock-a-leekie soup in Canterbury, charge your glasses and drink, “To the Immortal Memory of Robert Burns!”