65: Ron Butlin

Unsound Methods

This month we are speaking with international prize-winning novelist and former Edinburgh Makar / Poet Laureate (2008-2014), Ron Butlin.
In 2009 he was made the first-ever Honorary Writing Fellow (together with Ian Rankin) at Edinburgh University. Much of his work — novels, short stories and poetry — has been widely broadcast and translated. In addition to his plays for BBC radio and theatre, he has written seven opera libretti, three of them for Scottish Opera. He also writes for children.
Ron has given countless readings worldwide — from a one-roomed Shetland primary school to an Arab tent in the desert (most wonderfully accompanied by a Bahraini oudplayer), from the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh to the House of Lords in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and to a waterfront festival in Sydney.
Personal Bio:
I was brought up in a small Borders village, quit school at sixteen and hitchhiked down to London. A brief period of life on the streets, (see my recent novel So Many Lives and All of Them Are Yours, 2023) came to an end when I secured the positions of valet-footman (see Billionaires’ Banquet, 2017), then barnacle scraper on Thames barges, labourer, barman, computer operator and city messenger. Becoming an associate member of a short-lived pop group started me writing song lyrics. My longest-ever job, as a model for art students, allowed me to sit (usually more or less naked) and do nothing for hours, leaving my imagination completely free. My earliest published poems date from this period.
Later, while living in Paris, in the hills above Barcelona and a commune in the Australian outback (see Belonging, 2006), I began writing fiction. My first novel, The Sound of My Voice won the Prix Mille Pages 2004 and Prix Lucioles 2005 (both for Best Foreign Novel).
For the last thirty years, my marriage to the writer and poet Regi Claire has brought stability to my life — and about time too! We live in Edinburgh (the setting for GhostMoon, nominated for the International Impac Dublin Literary Award 2016). I love the music and magic of words and am as excited now to begin writing every morning as when I first started. I also teach a course in Music Appreciation at the University of Edinburgh.
Currently I am working on The Diary I Didn't Keep. This novel-in-progress is being serialised in fortnightly instalments on Substack as I write it. This new and rather alarming venture certainly keeps me on my toes. The novel is loosely autobiographical and the first instalment was released only recently, on 12 October. Here it is:
The Diary I Didn't Keep
ronbutlin.substack.com
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