A break-up, a book launch and a cross-country house-move.
Dear Friends,
Many of you will have heard by now that I have returned to live in Scotland. This was something I’d been thinking about more and more over the past few months because after four and a half years of sleepy Suffolk I was hankering after city life and a more bustling creative community; I’d intended to come back at the end of September, but when my relationship with (Antonia) my partner of eight years ended last month, I decided to take advantage of the clause break in the lease on my Sudbury flat.
All that, plus a series of Scottish literary events that began a week before my move-in date, starting with the Glasgow launch of my novel Vicky Romeo Plus Joolz inside the Mitchell Library at the Aye Write festival on the 15thof March.
Things have been a wee bit hectic for me to say the least. But it’s been mostly very good.
It’s now day four of my new Glasgow life and I am fucking loving it. My recently-acquired West End pad is surrounded by an abundance of vegan and vegetarian cafes as well as a vegan-friendly nail bar, a cruelty-free hairdresser’s, and an ice-cream bar that does vegan peanut butter churros – yaldi! I’m right next to the university gym (sounds like I might badly need it), and the actual entrance of Glasgow Uni is across the road too, so I’ll be able to pop along to all those ‘creative conversation’ lectures I’ve been missing out on that are open to both current students andgraduates – you never know I might get round to doing that creative writing PhD yet).
Yesterday, I got to visit the incredibly queer Category Is Books in the Southside for the first time and I had a cheeky ‘shelfie’ taken with my novel. I had to limit myself to only buying three books though because I’m rapidly running out of space and the last time I counted I still had another fourteen boxes left to unpack.
Antonia has been here manically building book shelves and helping me to rearrange my furniture – I’ve had to down-size to a one-room studio apartment and the only way is up if I want to keep even a third of my books. We might have split but we still remain close.
I’m not quite sure exactly what the future holds for me (apart from writing the next two instalments of the Glasgay Trilogy and readings at a couple of literary festivals later in the year) but I’m very excited about this fresh start. I think it’ll bring wonderful opportunities my way. I also felt it was a good opportunity to give this blogging lark another shot…
But I’m signing off now, because it’s dinner time and I have a hungry houseguest not to mention a whole neighbourhood full of plant-based eateries to explore.
Much love
Ely
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