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Posted: Monday 14 March 2011

The John Buchan Memorial Lecture: Beatrice Colin, Author

Beatrice Colin, Buchan Lecturer

Peter Aitken [S6] reports on the 2011 John Buchan Memorial Lecture, delivered by author Beatrice Colin.

Beatrice Colin, author of novels "The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite" and "The Songwriter", delivered this year's John Buchan Memorial Lecture. Born in London and raised in Scotland, she has also lived in New York City and now lives in Glasgow.

Beatrice Colin gave S6 an interesting talk about her life and how she ended up becoming a writer. She also gave us an exclusive reading from her new, unpublished novel, "The Pyrate's Boy".

She began by saying that she attended Park School in Glasgow, an all-girls school. She had various jobs throughout her younger years, ranging from a pop band singer to a waitress and also to a pantomime dresser."I basically got to pull Prince Charming's pants down everyday!", she quipped.

She told us how the idea of writing emerged from a time in her mid-twenties, when her father suggested that she go on holiday with an elderly aunt who lived in Paris. "She was 95 years old and very eccentric", she told us. They went to Cannes for the first holiday and to Normandy for the second. It was during these holidays that she learned about her aunt's extraordinary life in the growing film industry of the 1930s, which ultimately led to the idea for 'The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite".

She then "fell into journalism" and from that, decided to become a writer. You need to be lucky, she told us - very lucky. She explained that she usually redrafts a book about five times before she sends it to the publisher and aims to write 500 to 2000 words a day. However, as she jokingly told us, "on Mondays I usually get writers block!"

We were fortunate to hear the first chapter of her new book, "The Pyrate's Boy", which she hopes to have published next year.

Beatrice Colin's blog explains what the novel is about. Set in last days of the golden age of piracy, this novel for children follows the fate of eleven year-old Silas Orr, a pirate's boy. After being rescued and given a job by a pirate captain called Black Johnnie on board his boat, the Tenacity, Silas gets caught up in adventure that takes him from the plantations of Jamaica to Glasgow in the time of the Tobacco Lords. Sailing the triangle in pursuit of a high prize, they must survive not only stormy seas but also volcanoes, deadly assassins and the pull of their own pasts.

Tags: English, Talking Points

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