In its first year, ONE Magazine has been shortlisted for the Best Magazine, Small Publishing Company award. Winners will be annouced at a reception on 27 November, 2008 in Glasgow.

From PPA:

PPA Scotland is pleased to announce the shortlist for the Scottish Magazine Awards 2008.  Spanning the fields of business, entertainment, communication, design, sport, history, politics, retailing and medical science, 143 entries were received from thirty-five companies with 86 entries reaching the final shortlist.  Winners will be announced at a Gala Dinner and Award Ceremony on Thursday 27 November 2008 at The Radisson Hotel, Glasgow. The overall winner, Scottish Magazine of the Year 2008, will be chosen from category winners and announced at the end of the Award Ceremony.
The distinguished panel of judges, chaired by Helen Alexander CBE.

Thank You!

Friends, Colleagues and Writers:

On 22 October we will be launching a New and Improved: IamONE.co.uk

The new site will feature new navigation, access to stories and searchable information, as well as all of our past issues - complete!

See you then!

inquiries: theFuture@IamONE.co.uk

ONE Magazine and Partners Create New Arena for Literature, Arts and Culture

pictured: John Calder, Anne Clarke, Rupert Thomson

On 27 September 2008, the 40th anniversary of the Theatre Act, abolishing censorship in the UK, something new went right: the 1st Annual Merchant City Writers�?? Conference in Glasgow proved that once again, change has begun within the arts, literature, theatre and culture �?? reading as we know it, will never be the same.

ONE Magazine, the fastest-growing independent publishing project in Scotland, along with a host of like-minded event partners including the Scottish Book Trust, StAnza International Poetry Festival, Mckernan Literary Agency, Little Brown Books, Theatre NEMO, Scotland�??s Federation of Writers, Bookstart Rhymetime and John Calder of Calder Publications joined forces for a common message: innovate and create change.

The 200+ conference attendees came from all walks of life: business suits mingled with track suits, and people as young as 10 listened intently as the 81-year-old Calder reinvigorated a call for this new avante garde to challenge the status quo �?? age, gender, nor class figured into the events of the day.

Open mic readings, exhibitions and film screenings took place throughout the afternoon in addition to two highly spirited panel discussions. The first, Censorship and the Future: Market-Driven Trends or Social Realities? Included John Calder �?? Poet & Publisher, AC Clarke �?? Poet, Secretary - Federation of Writers Scotland, Jim Ferguson �?? Journalist - The Scotsman, Edwin Hawkes �?? Literary Agent, Rupert Thomson, Writer, Editor - The Skinny, and Martin Belk �?? Writer, Editor - One Magazine. The debate covered areas from social forces which currently affect the creation of new work to the decisions between an artist producing for the market vs. creating for an audience, with Edwin Hawkes underscoring the need for contemporary writers in particular to maintain or get back to creating their own truths in the face of quick media and a celebrity culture.

The second conversation, Your Mind for Your Money: 21st Century Education and Good Intentions… Can You Write What They Teach?, featured a new panel with Calder, Eleanor Livingstone �?? Artistic Director, StAnza Int�??l Poetry Festival, Glasgow Councillor Bailie Gordon Matheson, Isabel McCue �?? Director - Theatre NEMO, Susan Reynolds �?? Curator of Czech & Slovak, The British Library, Brian Whittingham �?? Author, Creative Writing Lecturer and James W Wood �?? Poet, Writer, Critic. A passionate audience challenged the councillor and government policies while Whittingham criticized a curriculum of �??dead poets�?? while Reynolds defended the works of classic authors as very much alive and relevant. Councillor Matheson asserted the need for robust core programs and defended community programs that teach writing about football as not �??dumbing down�?? �?? and teachers responded with concerns over disciplinary exclusions. Theatre NEMO director Isabel McCue, whose organization is paving new avenues in mental health and wellness within the community and prisons brought up new challenges in a society of what some described as �??throw away people�??.

pictured: Eleanor Livingstone, Councillor Gordon Matheson, Susan Reynolds

Further, Eleanor Livingstone underscored the need for festivals and cultural institutions to become more and more free and accessible, while Belk went on to point the finger squarely at elitist �??culture-cliques�?? in the US and UK, who seek to control the ability of new work to come forward through high-priced tickets while readers and participants are �??herded like cattle into shallow celebrity shows by festival masters who value hype over content�??. Echoing the sentiment was James W Wood, whose critical poem Song Of Scotland and article in the lastest issue of ONE are making waves of their own, calling for a new focus on content, and an abandonment of committee-based prize culture.

Early results show the ONE Magazine Writers�?? Conference has begun a new conversation in Scotland and beyond, clearly demonstrating the need for innovation and change within society. The event was a distinct beginning of something new.

The debate continues�?� Full audio and transcripts of the event will soon be available online at www.IamONE.co.uk

Contact

JD Pryce
0845 626 2018
thefuture@IamONE.co.uk

out now!

Alison Skilbeck shows how-it’s-done in her production of Are There More of You, playing through the 23rd of August at 8:30pm in the Quaker Meeting House.

“If Beckett gives a lesson to be learnt, it’s trying pays, although you may be burnt…”
—John Calder, Solo, ‘Battlefield Address to the Godot Company‘

At a gathering of friends last night, John Calder recommended Skilbeck’s show and was subsequently asked: “Is it good, or very good”, to which he replied the latter and I made my decision to attend. What I found was nothing short of brilliant and refreshing.

Skilbeck’s script is pithy and hysterically woven with some of the very essences of the contemporary human condition. Her performance is intelligent, subtly resilient and is a testament to the fine art of theatre, as well as the lost art and craft of literary storytelling. Skilbeck’s wit is as sharp as the dark side of a razor, and had me laughing out loud, American style.

My companion commented that he’d “just seen his mother”  in one character, and I’m still reeling from another who could switch back and forth into an Italian accent better than most of my fellow New Yorkers.  If you’ve ever done any serious personal reflection, see this show…Skilbeck might show you what’s been lurking deep down inside.

—Martin Belk

ONE Magazine, Polwarth Publishing and Knucker Press proudly presents:
UNDER YOUR COVERS
the 1st-annual Merchant City Festival Writers�?? Conference
SATURDAY, 27 SEPTEMBER08

ONEWritersConference.jpg  for writers, poets, musicians, readers and thinkers of all varieties
Saturday, 27 September 2008     12noon to 5pm �?? Free Admission

�??Every work of literature has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the story is the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight, the wisdom, the thing that one has come to say�??
�??Vivian Gornick, The Situation and the Story

Open Forums �?� Open Mic Readings �?� Panel Discussions
New Books for Sale �?� Refreshments �?� Children’s Story Room
Prize Draws from the latest releases
Guest panelists to be announced

also, don’t forget to pick up your copy:

ONE Magazine number 6: hopes, fears and rock ‘n’ roll
featuring exclusive coverage of the 2008 Prague Writers’ Festival

Margaret Atwood �?� Slavenka Drakulic

and Elliott Murphy’s Paris rendevous with
French TV and Bruce Springsteen

out now!

www.IamONE.co.uk

www.merchantcityfestival.com

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inside, outside, both?
highlights
�?? Martin Belk

Natalia Gorbanevskaya receives the Roots in Time: The Spiros Vergos Prize for Freedom of Expression

the conversation, �??1968�?? notes:
�??�?�it occurred to me that the inner and the outer could not be separated except by doing great damage to the truth�??
Paul Auster reads a paragraph from his novel Moon Palace, as part of the conversation.

To listen, right-click the link and ’save-as’ here:

http:www.IamONE.co.uk/PaulAuster2008.aif

Petr Král (Czech Republic) on 1968 then and now:

�??some of the craziness got saturated with wisdom and lost its edge. Do you feel that your imagination is [different] than the imagination of those who preceeded us?�??

full coverage later today, as events unfold

*Czech translation to be clarified.

Many of the writers who lived through this period and bravely demonstrated against the Russian occupation were present at the ceremony. Standing in solidarity with them, as she did forty years ago was Natalya Gorbanevskaya, one of the eight people who, in August 1968 turned up with her two month old baby at Red Square in Moscow to protest the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Natalya was subjected to a classic Soviet kangaroo-trial, and sent to a mental prison-hospital for many years where she was forcibly administered experimental psychiatric drugs.

Michael March, PWF founder and president welcomed the gathering of over 200 guests and told the room: �??freedom of expression is the basis of psychoanalysis�??complex questions demand simple answers�??you�??ve got to transmit the future�??.
The evening was decorated with traditional Czech and Mexican music as the Mexican Ambassador was on hand to remind us of the events that were happening in his country in 1968, which marked a political turning point for Mexico.
Tomorrow, Gary Younge will moderate the Guardian conversation: 1968 with Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, Michael McClure and Petr Kral. Natalya Gorbanevskaya will be presented Roots in Time: The Spiros Vergos Prize for Freedom of Expression.

1968: Prague Spring, Martin Luther King, Russian tanks in Wenceslas Square. 2008: a fifty percent chance of a black or woman American president; the Czech Republic recognizes Kosovo as an independent country. Stay tuned�?�

Doug Johnstone is a musician, a journalist and a doctor of experimental nuclear physics �?? what�??s more, he�??s just published his second novel. ANDREW J WILSON talks to a renaissance man about success, failure and the Scottish condition.

Doug Johnstone�??s playing guitar and singing in a bookshop basement when his three-year-old son toddles up to him and shouts, �??Too many songs, Daddy!�?? It�??s not exactly rock �??n�?? roll, but why should it be? Johnstone is launching his second novel.

The Ossians (Penguin Viking, £12.99) is the story of a rising indie band and their make-or-break tour of Scotland. He wanted to quote lyrics in the book, but his editor warned him how much this would cost and suggested that he should write his own. Johnstone rejected the idea at first, and then, a month later, found himself writing not just words for his fictional band, but their music as well. Now he�??s playing the songs to the crowd rather than reading from the book and Ian Rankin, no less, is listening appreciatively at the back.

Rock novels have a chequered history: not many writers can reach beyond their own adolescent fantasies when imagining adventures in the music industry, and rock stars themselves often have trouble thinking about anyone or anything but themselves. When I talk to Johnstone later, I ask him why he�??s tackled the subject.�??The majority of rock �??n�?? roll novels are about bands who become famous,

he tells me. �??It�??s a familiar narrative trajectory, not least because of rock band biographies: struggling kids long for fame; when they get fame, it turns out it�??s not what they thought it was going to be like. There have been very good novels written along those lines, but I was more interested in the dynamics of failure. For every Franz Ferdinand, there are 999 other bands, some of who are arguably just as talented, who don�??t make it. What happens then? Where and why did it all go wrong?�??

In fact, Johnstone is in a band himself, Northern Alliance, who have already released four respected albums on their own label. Their latest CD, using the pseudonym of The Ossians, is The Macpherson Tapes, which compiles seven textured lo-fi recordings of the songs Johnstone wrote for his fictional band.

�??The subculture of any country�??s indie music scene is fascinating, he says, �??it�??s where every huge band in the world springs from, yet it�??s a world that most people, who buy their CDs in Tesco and Asda, know nothing about.�??

Johnstone has certainly paid his dues as a musician: �??I know exactly what it�??s like to be in a struggling indie band, because I�??ve been in struggling indie bands for at least fifteen years. When I was younger, I busted a gut with various bandmates trying to get signed by a record label �?? and got precisely nowhere.�??

After a decade of effort, he and a couple of good friends decided to get back to basics and simply play for the fun of it: �??It�??s only when that happens that good, honest music finally comes out of you �?? when you�??re not chasing some ideal of what you think people want to hear,�?? he says. �??We put out a record ourselves, almost as a joke, and ended up getting rave reviews. We couldn�??t believe it. If a label came and tried to sign us now, we�??d say no �?? we love what we do, and wouldn�??t change a thing.�??

He drew on his personal experience of shambolic and chaotic gigs for The Ossians. �??Back in the day, there were plenty of times where I was so drunk and loaded that I barely knew which way the stage was. Usually that didn�??t matter �?? I was a drummer then, and could play pretty well, even when paralytic. Some gigs were amazing, some were truly horrible…�??

This familiarity with the literal highs and all-too-common lows of the music scene is one of the great strengths of The Ossians, but there is more than this going on in the novel. Johnstone also wanted to address some questions about Scottish national identity while examining the underbelly of the music industry.

He describes Connor Alexander, the lead singer of The Ossians, as �??an arrogant, confused, intelligent, charismatic arsehole. He�??s trying to find meaning in his life, a home he can call his own, some sense of who he is and what he belongs to. So his band head out on a disastrous tour of the Scottish Highlands, where his search for a home is ultimately fruitless and eventually life-threatening. Of course, even the band name he�??s chosen is tied up in the duality of the Scottish character, that whole Jekyll and Hyde cliché that afflicts us all.�??

This is an aspect of the novel that simmers underneath the surface froth of rock �??n�?? roll excess. Contemporary novelists like Irvine Welsh and Iain Banks are clearly reference points for Johnstone, but he is also aware of the long shadows of Robert Louis Stevenson and James Hogg. The very name of Connor Alexander�??s band refers to the eighteenth-century work of James Macpherson.

This poet and mythmaker published �??translations�?? of Ossian, the so-called Gaelic homer, but was exposed by Dr Johnson as only having woven fragments of ancient poems and stories into work of his own. When challenged by Macpherson, Johnson said, �??I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think is a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian.�?? The question of authenticity constantly haunts Connor Alexander, even as he descends into his own self-destructive tartan hell.

When I ask Johnstone why he has moved from music to fiction, he tells me that he�??s always done both, but has changed his emphasis recently. Now that he�??s abandoned music as a career, this has freed up more time to write seriously.

�??Part of it was that I was just getting older and more interested in ideas and how they can be conveyed in a literary form,�?? he says. �??I was sending off short stories to countless competitions and hearing nothing back, and I finally decided I needed a novel-length project to work on, to get my teeth into, and that seemed to be the turning point. Suddenly, I had a big thing that I could immerse myself in, and upshot was that I finally got published.�??

That first novel was Tombstoning. It�??s the story of David Lindsay, who returns to Arbroath �?? Johnstone�??s own home town �?? after fifteen years for a school reunion. He becomes entangled in the mystery of why people are throwing themselves off the cliffs �?? the extreme form of diving referenced by the title.

When I ask Johnstone how his writing has evolved between books, he admits that he actually wrote an early and very different version of The Ossians first. �??It was politely rejected by every publisher and agent in the country,�?? he tells me. �??I had some positive feedback, though, which encouraged me to carry on.
The result was Tombstoning, after which I went back and completely rewrote The Ossians.

�??In terms of evolution, I think I learned a huge amount during the editing process of Tombstoning, both in terms of sentence-by-sentence clarity and overall themes, plot, narrative and character development. After that process, I couldn�??t believe how bad the first version of
The Ossians was, in my eyes at least, so I took it apart and started again.�??

Johnstone thinks that Tombstoning had interesting things to say about the past and how we relate to it, but acknowledges that this was housed in an essentially straightforward thriller plot. �??I think The Ossians has a lot more to say about truth and lies, about national and personal identity, about hopes and dreams versus crushing reality �?? it�??s a more ambitious and, I hope, a more successful piece of work.�??

How does he compare writing songs and working on novels? �??The writing of songs is much more spontaneous and scattershot than the actual act of writing, which is very regimented for me. I�??ve been a freelance journalist for eight years, and that�??s given me a discipline in my writing, I think. I don�??t really believe in writer�??s block �?? imagine trying to swing that past the editor of a newspaper when you miss your deadline?�??

Johnstone�??s ideas for his fiction come to him at random, but he describes his process of planning and writing as long, complex and methodical. Music is a different proposition for him: �??I almost never sit down to write a song in the same way. I usually just pick up a guitar and strum aimlessly, or flick through my notebooks of lines or phrases or ideas that have resonated with me, and see what happens from there.Music is a much more oblique art form anyway, so I think trying to pin it down in a regimented way is a mistake.�??

While writing and making music, Johnstone surprisingly found the time to gain a degree and then do a PhD in experimental nuclear physics. He even spent four years designing radar and missile guidance systems for planes and helicopters, but he now writes and performs on a full-time basis. What will he do next, I wonder?

�??I�??ve actually just finished a draft of the next novel,�?? he says. �??It�??s not the final draft, but it�??s not too far away either. It�??s got another eye-grabbing, daft title, but I won�??t spill the beans just yet. I don�??t want to talk too much about it, not because I�??m superstitious, just because, if it�??s shit and never sees the light of day, then I�??ll look like a right eejit by banging on about it.

�??Anyway, it�??s a much bigger book, both physically �?? this draft is over 500 pages �?? and in terms of scope. It�??s essentially a kind of dysfunctional family saga, set partly in Portobello in Edinburgh and partly in Reykjavik in Iceland. The main character is a man approaching his fiftieth birthday who�??s never done much with his life, but who suddenly has a second chance at being a worthwhile member of society and his family when he�??s thrown together with his estranged children after the death of his sister. There�??s a big family secret, Icelandic sagas, growing up, suicide attempts, funerals, weddings, scrimshaw, scientific exploration, exploding whales and dramatic childbirth. Does that sound like a winner to you?�??

It does indeed. He�??ll only need to worry if his son shouts, �??Too many novels, Daddy!�??