Nova Scotia Vol 2 anthology, edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J. Wilson, is now available to order! It celebrates the depth and breadth of Scotland's dazzling science fiction and fantasy landscape from its haunted islands to its transformed cities and everything in between. Jenni Coutts created the gorgeous cover art.
You can order the book on its own, or buy the bundle anthology deal - both from the Luna store.
Today we'd like to introduce you to Carole Johnstone and the story "Glencoe".
About the author:
Carole Johnstone grew up in Lanarkshire, Scotland, and in her twenties relocated to Essex to work as a radiographer. She has been writing as long as she can remember and is an award-winning short story writer.
Her debut novel, Mirrorland, a gothic suspense set in Edinburgh, described by Stephen King as ‘Dark and devious, beautifully written and plotted with a watchmaker’s precision’, has been optioned for TV, with translation rights sold to 14 other territories. Her second novel, The Blackhouse, an unusual murder-mystery set in the Outer Hebrides, was published in 2022.
She now writes fulltime and lives with her husband in the West Highlands, although her heart belongs to the sea and the wild islands of the Outer Hebrides.
Carole on the story:
Glencoe, through geography, legend, and infamy, has an atmosphere so its own it feels almost otherworldly. I grew up with my historian father’s stories about the Macdonald Massacre, and can remember dreich, long days hiking through mud and moor. I’ve wanted to write about this special place for many, many years, but it was only when I moved into the area a few years ago that I began to know it well enough to try.
Somehow, the intrusions of the modern world – the campervans and bus tours; film sets and scandals; graffitied signs and vandalised buildings – have not altered this landscape in the ways they so often do elsewhere. Instead, they serve only to intensify Glencoe’s status as a place that is liminal and uncanny and apart; utterly unchanged in a world that is always sprinting towards the new.
To drive or hike through Glencoe, even without knowing its long and bloody history, is an experience like no other; to try to describe it is like trying to catch smoke. But it is this ancient place – this unique and eerie seven mile stretch of bog and moor and ben and glen – that I have tried to capture and celebrate in "Glencoe".
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