Our Highlighted Author: Euan McBride

INTERview with aN AUthor

Every month we are going to highlight an author who we, as a team, particularly enjoy and think our readers will enjoy too. So the first ever author we are highlighting is Euan McBride. Euan McBride is an Edinburgh born and bred author and creative writer. His work includes satirical columns and screenwriting, as well as his published fiction writing. His first novella with Lothian-based independent publishing house, Malki Press, is ‘A Girl in a Pool’ - a harrowingly hopeful story about siblings during the end of times. the most sincere and direct way I can address my personal issues with contemporary life from my own learned

So first of all, how did you first get into writing, writing, I do try and interact with concepts of conand find your love for it? temporary masculinity, in all its ego and fragility. I feel that’s the most sincere and direct way I can I was an absolutely appalling student in school and address my personal issues with contemporary life the only subject I really responded to was English, from my own learned experience. specifically, any opportunity to do a wee bit creative writing. After a spectacular departure from school to This month’s issue is all about Staycations, what focus on an illustrious career in McDonalds I found is your favourite thing to do on a staycation? I always had a compulsion to continue writing, all of it shockingly bad, but over the years of tinkering I recently moved to the Scottish borders so am thoraway I found I was slowly developing my own voice, oughly enjoying exploring the area in my downand afer moving to Glasgow for a few years I found time. The Tweed valley is beautiful and there’s a lot myself contributing regularly to a literary journal and to explore on walks. That’s the afternoons, in the started to take my own writing a little more seriously evenings I love to pour a glass of wine and spend rather than viewing it just as a hobby. a lot of time cooking. I recently worked in a kitchen so I really like to take all I learned there home with

‘A Girl in a Pool’, whilst apocalyptic, has themes me. Also, my girlfriend has really got me into some that aren’t dissimilar to staycations in pandemic reality TV of late so I’m gradually becoming a bit of lockdown. What inspired the story setting for ‘A a couch potato, and doing my best to control my

Girl in a Pool’? growing crush on Fred Sirieix.

I’d say the central theme to the book is isolation. That kind of emotional wasteland where through a bit of personal loss, whether it be a particularly potent break-up, or a bereavement or the like, you can find yourself feeling entirely alone. I felt an apocalyptic setting expressed that in quite a literal sense, everything is gone, the familiar and those you love, and how do you find your way back from that when looking at a world you don’t recognise? It sounds very bleak, but I tried to inject a bit of hope into the book too! I wouldn’t recommend a staycation in an to have a draft finished by the end of the year. It

entirely dystopic end of the world scenario.

Writing is a powerful tool to continue sharing important messages, With so much going on in 2020 but really all the time in the world, is there anything going on right now that you are particularly keen to continue the voice on? Where can our readers find you and your work?

This year has been rather spectacular in regard to unveiling some serious political and social issues, and it’s becoming very apparent that cracks are beginning to show in the societal structures that have been the foundation of inequity in contemporary life. I’m a white, straight, cis-gendered man so I have the benefit of traversing the world with a fully stamped card in privilege bingo, so don’t want to stand on the soapbox I’m afforded by such and cite all the issues I have personally with racial, sexual and gendered prejudice. I can only continue to advocate for the movements, and challenge other white, straight, cis-gendered men holding onto learned prejudice where I can. In that regard, when considering my

Where has your best holiday to date been?

I spent a winter renovating a house in Bavaria in the South of Germany a few years ago, and when I say winter, I mean WINTER! It was very much an idyllic Christmas card come to life. Wooden cabins, thick snow, dense forests, chopping wood and drinking a lot of amazing Bavarian beer. Ich leibst Bavaria.

What’s next for you and your work?

I’m currently working on my first novel which I hope seems to be going well so far! Though it is the longest form of writing I have attempted so far so I’m potentially losing a bit of objectivity, it may be nonsense, time will tell.

social change and throw what weight I have behind

My novella ‘A Girl in a Pool’ and my short story collection ‘Detritus & Brux’ are both published by Malki Press, a small independent publishing house from Edinburgh. They can be purchased from their website at www.malkipress.weebly.com , or, I tend to always have spare copies and have a tendency to just give them away so if you ever bump into me just ask and I’ll gladly give you one (don’t tell my publisher).