A Highland book launch | Pinnacle Newsletter #65
#65 A Highland book launch
This week, I headed north to Fort William to attend the launch event of a very special book: Sky Dance by John D. Burns (Vertebrate Publishing). I worked on this project from concept right through to the proofreading stage, and I consider it one of my greatest professional achievements of the last year, so to be invited to speak at John’s book launch was a privilege.
The Highland Bookshop made a superb venue for the event, with its spacious room on the upper floor. The manager told me that John’s first two books have consistently been among their top sellers. It always gives me a thrill to walk into a bookshop and see a book I’ve edited on the shelf, but in the Highland Bookshop I saw several in addition to John’s books. It’s perhaps the best bookshop in Scotland for the genre closest to my heart.
The audience assembled, and I chatted with a few people I’d spoken to online (including Jonathan Binny, who reads this newsletter – nice to see you, Jonathan). After a moment of confusion in which I was introduced as the first speaker by accident, and wandered up onto the stage only to realise my cue shouldn’t have come for another half an hour, things went smoothly. John started by saying that most book launches are dreadfully dull and that he wanted to do something a bit more fun. The audience of about 20–25 people seemed pleased about that, and they responded enthusiastically to John’s one-man play of the Kinder Mass Trespass – this definitely helped to break the ice! After a little discussion about how his perspective on wildlife and conservation has changed, and ultimately come to sculpt the direction of his writing, he asked me to step up onto the stage and say a few words.
I have written a blog post based on my brief talk (including photos from the launch), so I won’t reproduce it here. But at a prearranged cue (‘unscrupulous landowners’) John burst back onto the stage dressed as Lord Purdey, the upper-class villain in Sky Dance, complete with tweed jacket, waistcoat, deerstalker, and placard. Purdey demanded to know if I was ‘this Burns chap’, barged me off the stage, and then denounced Sky Dance before insisting that he’d been conserving and shooting wildlife for over twenty years. The audience loved this. Purdey is a fantastic character, written boldly but with a carefully judged sense of balance, and it was great to see John bring him to life.
Purdey took the deerstalker off to reveal himself as – gasp! – the author himself, who read a short passage from the book before thanking the audience and asking if there were any questions. Most of the hardback copies of Sky Dance had already been signed, but he signed quite a few paperbacks and copies of his other books too, and the manager later told John that it had been a great success in terms of sales. While that’s all to the good, I think the greater success was in bringing the book and its themes to life in such a fun and engaging way. John’s background as an actor and stand-up comedian made all the difference.
The event wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Vertebrate Publishing, who have worked hard to help make this book a success. I can’t wait to get my teeth into John’s next project.
Recently published
What I’ve been reading this week – this week’s quality online reads on the outdoors, hiking, writing, editing, and mental health.
Ode to the Samyang 12mm f/2 wide-angle lens – this lens has become one of my all-round favourites for mountain and backpacking photography.
Sky Dance by John D. Burns – why this book was my top project for 2019 – a blog post about the book and the author, based on the talk I delivered this week in Fort William, plus a few photos from the launch.
Until next time,
Alex
Readers can now support my writing by making a one-off donation via my tip jar. Your spare change helps keep me going on the trail!
If you enjoy my weekly letters or find them interesting, please tell someone else. Here is the signup link you can share: https://tinyletter.com/alex_roddie