Maggie Craig
Only townies can be writers, then?

Rosemary Goring, literary editor of the Herald, has complained about the largely negative response to the recently published report of the Literature Working Group, which she chaired. Much of the criticism has indeed been hostile, including that from the Society of Authors in Scotland, which represents 700 professional Scottish writers.
     In her report, Miss Goring sang the praises of the Scottish Review of Books, edited by her partner. She has subsequently defended herself against accusations of cronyism via the generous column inches afforded by the Sunday Herald's weekend essay, quoting Stuart Kelly, literary editor of Scotland on Sunday: 'I can't imagine how any panel of experts could avoid having connections unless it were comprised solely of people with no interest in books'.
     Unless perhaps they had been drawn from a wider pool than the Byres Road Mafia or the literati of Edinburgh's New Town or New Leith. The LWG report commends the Live Literature Scheme, 'one of the most effective ways of getting authors and their work out of cities and towns and into all Scotland's communities, however small or remote'.
     Only townies can be writers, then? Hilarious.
     I'm one of many Scottish writers who live on an unclassified road off another unclassified road. We communicate with each other and our urban colleagues daily via e-mails, online writers' groups, Facebook and Skype. We also use the internet for research and to keep up-to-date with all manner of subjects. I find it a revealing sign of how out of touch the LWG is with Scotland's writers that their report betrays little or no knowledge of just how active we are in cyberspace.
     Nor do I recognise the sorry picture they paint of Scottish writers as subsidy junkies who expect funding, grants and state support when the reading public stubbornly refuses to recognise the genius inherent in their Vogon love poetry.
     These talented but wayward children will need help with those pesky grant forms, too. Apparently administrative expertise 'does not often go hand-in-hand with literary talent'. Was there nobody on the LWG who could hear how condescending that sounds?
     
Pin back your lugs, Rosemary. Like everyone else, Scottish writers come in glorious variety. Most of us have and often continue to do different jobs, care for children and other relatives, get involved in things we believe in. We've learned to write by writing – and by living in the real world.
     In her Sunday Herald essay, Rosemary Goring's typical Scottish writer is, in contrast, a graduate of a university creative writing course in receipt of an SAC grant which allows her to give up her 'dull admin job'. Before she's 30, her second book not well received and out of ideas for the third, this woman is back at the uni teaching other hopefuls how to write exactly the same way she does.
     My friends and colleagues in the Society of Authors in Scotland and the Scottish Association of Writers take a different approach. We write and publish novels, non-fiction, poetry and articles for conventional publishers, print media and internet sites, always looking for new markets for our work. A few of us have received an occasional small grant to help with a specific project.
     For me back in 1996 it was £750 from the SAC towards the travel and accommodation costs associated with the research for my first book, 'Damn' Rebel Bitches: The Women of the '45'.
     Struggling financially a year or so later – writers are always struggling financially – someone suggested I apply again to the SAC. When I told her I'd had my grant, she laughed at me. Once you'd got one grant, you'd get another one. That was how it worked.
     Not for me. Not for most of the authors I know.
     It's not easy making a living as a writer. So we diversify. Novelists write articles. Journalists who want to write the Great Scottish Novel do the work that pays the bills during the day and write their books in the evenings and at weekends. Poets become writers-in-residence, where they work damn hard for their money.
     Men and women holding down full-time jobs in all sectors of the economy write wherever and whenever they can. What we don’t do is expect the state to support us for years on end.
     
The big idea of the LWG report is the creation of a Scottish Academy of Literature, which would 'help instill the kind of self-confidence in their own instrinic cultural worth that is generally absent among our writers…'
     As envisaged here, a Scottish Academy of Literature would do the exact opposite. The members of this exclusive group – otherwise there would be no kudos in it – would be chosen by an even smaller group. These Olympians would come from Scotland's 'best' and 'most highly-regarded writers, whose contribution to literature would make their own place in any academy incontestable'.
     Pre-empting the obvious question as by whose standards it would be decided who are our best and most highly-regarded writers, the LWG report tells us plebs: 'It is our belief that these objections are culturally immature'.
     The tone of pompous Stalinism pervades this document, even when its proposals are patently ludicrous, such as that the Scottish Publishers' Association should surrender its priceless Scottish identity. The attacks on the excellent Books From Scotland website and the funding of Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature are equally hard to understand.
     What I see in the LWG report is the same old clique doing what they always do. Jobs for the boys. There's little here of benefit to real Scottish writers: or real Scottish readers.

Maggie Craig is a Scottish writer, currently serving her second term as a committee member of the Society of Authors in Scotland.