In the Margins #10
Hollywood comes to St. Andrews, current projects and future plans
Last month I went to St. Andrews and all I got was Steven Soderbergh’s autograph on my The Limey poster…
If you read A Kind of Magic: The Making of the Original Highlander, you might remember that in the introduction I mention watching Soderbergh’s The Limey for the first time in 1999 at the same place where I saw Highlander in 1994, Edinburgh’s Cameo cinema. A few years ago I also got to meet the Limey himself, Terence Stamp, when I interviewed him for BBC Radio Scotland.
Steven Soderbergh was in conversation at the SANDS film festival in St. Andrews in April and I headed up there to try and get my poster signed (I already had screenwriter Lem Dobbs’ autograph). Thankfully he seemed happy to sign a few things for fans (while Spider-Man himself Tom Holland stopped for photos nearby) and I now have to buy myself a new frame so I can hang the poster in the living room.
A few changes
It’s been a little while since my last newsletter, partly because I’m working on new projects and partly because I feel I should be bringing you big news each time. Sadly, there isn’t always big news to share.
I’m usually trying to push a book project forward, working my day job, watching films, reading books or having a bit of a social life (though that usually involves something film or book-related).
Alongside these newsletters, I’ve been considering writing some posts on the process of writing and publishing a non-fiction book. When I was thinking about writing the Tremors book I kept putting it off because I’d never written a book before. Now I’ve done it three times and I’m working on at least five other books that will hopefully be published in the next three years.
I’ve had a few people contact me to ask how I go about it and I’ve tried to offer as much advice as I can, bearing in mind I’m making this up as I go along. So perhaps I could write a few posts covering how I did it. Because I self-published Seeking Perfection, I can go through everything and maybe publish a chapter or three on here.
I’d also like to interview other authors of books about film and TV series as I’m guessing you’d like to know about other books you should be buying or borrowing from the library. So I might publish some posts with those interviews.
If you’d like to read this sort of thing then please comment below or send me a DM so I know I’m not going to be wasting my time!
TremorsFest 2
I don’t have lots of Tremors, Highlander or Local Hero news, but if you own my Seeking Perfection book then you might be interested to know that a second Tremors festival is taking place in Santa Fe in October at a cinema owned by author George R.R. Martin. George is a huge fan of the films and will be there alongside Michael Gross and other cast and crew. I’d love to be there but I’m not sure that will happen, hopefully, there’ll be copies of the book to get signed.
What I’ve been working on
Jim Henson has been filling much of my time over the past few months, as I edit the interviews I’ve carried out for a new book that focuses on the people who worked with the man.
It’s a project I started pre-pandemic, carrying out a dozen or so interviews, and when I returned to it recently I decided that simply publishing transcripts of interviews wasn’t doing the interviewees justice, so I’ve been busy redrafting them. I hope that it will be out towards the autumn.
I’m also in the process of revisiting my plan for a book on the making of the 1990s BBC TV series, Hamish Macbeth, which I started carrying out interviews for back in 2008ish. I’ve long been a fan of the series and I used to interview the cast when they were in plays in Edinburgh or speak to the crew by email or Skype (remember Skype?). I now have around 30 interviews to work with.
I started writing the book just before I was commissioned to write A Kind of Magic, so the latter had to take priority. I’d like to have this out for early 2025 as it’ll be the 30th anniversary. Would anyone be interested in a possible book launch alongside a screening of the “lost” episode, West Coast Story?
If you’re in the UK then check the series out on BBC iPlayer right now, I’m sure it’ll be on Prime Video in other countries.
I’ve also been writing a novella for a while now, a thriller set in the Scottish Highlands. My day job and the above projects tend to leave me little time to write fiction, and I have complicated things by seeing it as part of a larger series that I’m also trying to work out, but I thought I’d see if I could do it. I have no plans to publish this in 2024, but I’ll let you know if it happens in 2025(ish).
Finally in non-book news, last year I was hired to carry out some development research for a new podcast about the mystery surrounding an attempted assassination in the Scottish town of Kirkcaldy. The result, Crime Next Door: An Assassin Comes to Town, is now on BBC Sounds.
Other bits and bobs
Over the past few months I’ve bought far too many DVDs from charity shops and new Blu-rays/4Ks from boutique labels - Planet of the Vampires, Flesh and Bone, Snapshot, Nick of Time, Patrick, Goodbye & Amen, Le Trou, Chaser, Two Hands and Shark! to name a few - but getting around to watching them proves tricky when Channel 4 and the BBC have so many great films available on catch-up.
Here’s my viewing as logged on Letterboxd, with most of them watched on those services, while I saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 35mm during a trip to Eden Court in Inverness and 28 Days Later at Cineworld.
I’d not seen Starman or You Were Never Really Here before and enjoyed them both, particularly the latter, while No Exit was never going to be a favourite but it is a nice throwaway thriller.
This month I want to try and watch more from my collection, though Channel 4 does have titles such as The Man Between with James Mason, Payroll with Michael Craig, The Winslow Boy with Robert Donat and Carlito’s Way tempting me…
I’m always looking for film recommendations, new or preferably old, so please feel free to throw some my way.
I’m also watching the new series of Doctor Who on Saturday mornings now that it goes live on iPlayer at midnight on a Friday thanks to the Disney deal. I don’t have a problem with the weird scheduling as I think all TV will go that way in the next few years as digital-first becomes a thing. As for the episodes, I’ve had mixed feelings about each one but think Ncuti and Millie are a good pairing, it’s just a shame we only get eight episodes and two of them are “Doctor-lite”.
I recently finished the new series of the BBC’s Race Across the World, which I loved every second of, in a similar way to The Traitors a few months ago. I struggle with most new 8-episode dramas due to their length, feeling that they usually only have enough plot for a 90-minute film, but for some reason I love these reality game shows.
Spotted in the wild
It’s always nice to see copies of my books in a bookshop, and I’ll also admit that I usually take a photo of said book(s). Is that a bad thing? Possibly, though with so many books available I think it’s a small miracle when any shop takes a chance on stocking mine.
Here are a couple of photos I took in the last month here in Edinburgh, the first from Argonaut Books in Leith (where American tourists tend to buy A Kind of Magic) and the second from Waterstones West End. If you see any of my books on sale I’d love to see a photo…
Finally, a mention that signed copies of A Kind of Magic and Local Hero are still available from my publisher, while Seeking Perfection is mainly available online, though I do have some copies - if you want one I’m sure I can sort something out if you DM me, though please note that postage outside the UK, particularly to North America, is very expensive these days.
That’s enough from me, until next time, don’t lose your head!
Jon