A Fictional Guide to Scotland is a collection of short stories and one poem from 17 writers who were either Scottish by birth or lived in Scotland at the time of submission. The pieces which made it into the book were selected through an anonymous submissions process with an OpenInk editor Elizabeth Reeder and guest editors, Meaghan Delahunt and Suhayl Saadi, choosing the final pieces.
OpenInk was a group of Glasgow-based writers who came together out of a desire to create publications which offered writers and readers a unique experience. The OpenInk Editorial board was entirely voluntary. One of the editors was a full-time writer woking both on her own writing and as a writer in residence in Glasgow. The remaining editors worked by day in a range of professions and wrote in their spare time.
The publication of the book was supported by a grant from Glasgow City Council. In addition, the editors raised a substantial amount of the money required for the project through sponsorship from friends and family.
In addition to the book, OpenInk ran a reading tour entitled A Fictional Guide to Scotland. This reading tour visited places as far and wide as Wigtown, Ullapool, Inverness, Edinburgh, Stirling, Lanark and Glasgow and was supported by the Scottish Arts Council.
Famous quotes containing the words fictional, guide and/or scotland:
“One of the proud joys of the man of letters—if that man of letters is an artist—is to feel within himself the power to immortalize at will anything he chooses to immortalize. Insignificant though he may be, he is conscious of possessing a creative divinity. God creates lives; the man of imagination creates fictional lives which may make a profound and as it were more living impression on the world’s memory.”
—Edmond De Goncourt (1822–1896)
“They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey
Yet never partake of the treat—
Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,
Pale ravener of horrible meat.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Four and twenty at her back
And they were a’ clad out in green;
Tho the King of Scotland had been there
The warst o’ them might hae been his Queen.
On we lap and awa we rade
Till we cam to yon bonny ha’
Whare the roof was o’ the beaten gold
And the floor was o’ the cristal a’.”
—Unknown. The Wee Wee Man (l. 21–28)