Hey there folks of world, I’ve been meaning to do an update for a while but life got in the way. I needed a moment of procrastination on something else to kick my arse into updating the site and here it is!
So the book is out in the world and is being well received (the fear never goes away). Units are selling, as the suits say, and people are saying nice things on social media, Goodreads and Amazon, and beyond it being made into a film staring Andrew Scott and Kawakami Mieko (I know she’s an author but she’d be perfect as Eri and this is my dream casting not yours) there’s not much more I could ask for.
On October 3rd there was a physical – physical! In person! – launch at the Imaike Library Club in Nagoya which saw me perform in front of a full and socially distanced crowd for the first time in more than a year. It was live streamed and the video is here for your watching. A huge thanks to the library for hosting me in what I hope will be the first of many events there now that we are apparently exiting the end times.
I also recorded a podcast with Deep in Japan, a ramble chat (sorry Adam Buxton but it’s the perfect phrase) about the book, lockdown, Japan, vaccine side effects and a bunch of other stuff. It’s here or wherever you get your podcasts.
This weekend (Saturday 16th October) I will be appearing as part of the Japan Writers Conference. It’s an online affair (sadly for us, as Saturday night at the JWC is one of my highlights of the year, happily for people who wouldn’t have been able to travel to Kanagawa for it). I’ll be talking about the new book but in a more academic and less “buy my book it’s awesome” kind of way. I’ll be talking about writerly advice, drafting, editing, and a new term I learned last year and has fascinated me ever since, autocomposting. There are a bunch of other great writers on over the weekend, including Suzanne Kamata, Karen Hill Anton and a plethora of Isobar poets. Link as and when I have it.
I recorded another podcast, this time Scots Whay Hey alongside my publishers. It should be out any day now and I’m a little worried – it’s audio and video (recording online) and I didn’t realise there was a video component until halfway through so I made no effort to look good or to have appropriate lighting. Probably best to listen to this one, or watch with your eyes closed.
Finally thanks to everyone who has bought a copy of the book, particularly those who went through indie bookshops to do so. It’s a small book from a new press and making elbow room is difficult, so thank you all for your efforts.
Iain Maloney 
Hi Iain
So where can I buy it?
By the way I just went on my first trip outside of Crieff and Glasgow for the past pandemic era, to visit son at University in Aberdeen. He’s in his third year now but we’d not been able to get to know the city as planned for obvious reasons. Anyway just thought I’d say that, for no obvious reason except that you’re from there and may appreciate me saying how much I’ve enjoyed being there whenever I have visited. I’m from Perth and in my 50plus years had never been there, though had travelled the world and lived in Laos for 12 years (where son was born and first brought up).
Its a fine city though no doubt with its economic troubles now. In fact I saw falling down drunks in the centre, a family sight in my childhood and youth that made me realise even in recent years in Glasgow they have hardly been around. So that’s a worrying sign, they were the typical older men reminding me of the typical Grassmarket inhabitants in my student years in Edinburgh in the 1980s. (Any time I am there now, surrounded by the hordes of tourists, I feel those men still haunt in the deep stony underpasses leading off the Grassmarket.)
But last week.in Aberdeen on a dark rainy evening wondering where everyone was as Union Street was deserted I discovered The Union Square complex around the station, which is full.of shops and restaurants. So the Apple store and others were packed, as were all the others, and restaurants heaving. I was surrounded by teens and young and older people eating in Wagamama, for which there was a queue as there was at Yo Sushi, TGI Fridays and most others. I suspect that is a change from your youth! But the back streets around Justice Mill Lane, though partly crammed by new build hotels, still seem to me to have a character of their own.
Anyway … Best Janet
Janet Pontin
Thanks Janet. You can get it from all the usual places but the best choice is directly from the publisher – free postage in the UK and Japan and no inbetweener taking a cut. https://www.liminalink.com/product-page/life-is-elsewhere-burn-your-flags