There comes a time towards the end of every day here on the croft when I need to collect the eggs, feed the various hangers-on and walk the dog down by the lochside (a perilous adventure right now, as nesting oystercatchers dive-bomb you to keep you away from their territory). About an hour ago, picking my way across the rocks, I heard my mobile phone ring. It was David ringing from the house, in a complete and largely incoherent tizz. Immediately imagining the worst, I set about extracting from him what had happened. It transpires that there had been a telephone call from Alasdair Gray. Well, we’re lucky enough that a few weeks ago he offered an excerpt from his new play, Fleck (a modern-day take on Faust) to put on our literary webmag, Corvaceous. He was calling to see whether we’d like to serialise the whole thing. David, fresh from a reading of Lanark and deeply impressed (he hasn’t rated a novel since Camus’ L’Etranger – except mine, of course, under some duress :-) was in a complete state of tongue-tied hero-worship, mopping his brow and stomping around the house like a star-struck teenager.
I have no doubt that there are still editors in big publishing houses who are capable of excitement over the literary excellence of an author rather than the amount of cash they’re likely to generate for the company. But at Two Ravens Press we do sort of specialise in it. It’s what makes it all worthwhile – the opportunity to promote really fine writing in any way that we can.
Sharon
