If you’re eligible for Crime in the Spotlight – apply! What have you got to lose?

As we launch our Crime in the Spotlight slots – an annual initiative which sees new crime writers reading an extract of their work in front of a packed Bloody Scotland audience – we caught up with former participant Liz Webb. Liz, who read an extract of her debut novel The Daughter at the festival back in 2022, will return to the festival this year to discuss her second novel, The Saved at our Dark Islands event on Friday the 13th of September. The novelist will appear alongside fellow authors George Paterson and Claire McGowan.

Can you tell us about your Crime in the Spotlight experience?

“My Crime in the Spotlight experience was great. My publisher Allison & Busby encouraged me to apply and I thought: oh, I’ll never get in. But then, amazingly, I was given a slot, which was absolutely fantastic.

“It’s the most brilliant thing because it allows very new writers with no real presence to get up on stage in big venues with amazing people. Gordon J. Brown introduced me to the audience, and then I got to do my reading before Denzil Meyrick and Alex Gray were interviewed on stage. Both of the authors are absolutely fantastic. They were so nice and encouraging.

“I’d practiced my reading so many times that I knew it off by heart! I was so incredibly nervous, but it was a great experience. Everyone was so lovely.

“We did a little practice beforehand. I was a standup comedian many years ago, but nowadays I’m quite a nervous person. Thankfully, once I was up on stage, the old standup within me kicked in and I was able to really enjoy the experience. After you read you get to do a book signing alongside the authors who are headlining the event which was absolutely fantastic.”

How did the experience help you as an author?

“It really helped me because I hadn’t appeared at any of the big festivals at that point. It’s really good to get over the horror of reading your work and realising that actually, everyone gets a bit nervous. It’s very good for your profile too because Bloody Scotland send you social media assets to help promote the fact that you’re appearing at the festival – and that does make a difference. It ups your profile and gives your social media a boost, which helps attract the attention of the industry.”

Applications are now open for 2024. What would you say to anyone who was thinking about applying?

If you’re eligible then apply – 100%. What have you got to lose? It’s totally worth doing it and not just for the experience of reading. Bloody Scotland has got this slightly magical feel to it and everyone is so friendly. It’s worth going for the whole weekend and attending the panels and the Golden Lion Bar – that’s a great place to meet fellow authors and readers too.

You’ll be at the festival to talk about your latest novel, The Saved. Can you tell us about the book?

“The Saved centres around Nancy and Calder, a young couple who move from London to the fictional Scottish slate island of Langer. Within a week, Nancy sees Calder’s body floating in the bay outside. Nancy and the man who runs the church drag the body onto the ground but Calder cannot be resuscitated. The emergency services fly his body by helicopter to Glasgow and the doctor says – and this is a real thing in medicine – ‘you’re not dead until you are warm and dead’. Calder has had a heart attack when he’s freezing cold. It’s very rare, but under these circumstances you can actually be brought back to life up to six hours later.

“Nancy doesn’t believe that Calder can be revived, but the doctors take his blood out of his body and warm it up one degree at a time and feed it back in, before giving him an electric shock. They manage to bring him back and it feels like a miracle. They test his brainwaves, and Calder is fine, but when Nancy looks into his eyes, she doesn’t see her partner. There is something drastically wrong. They go back to the island together, but as far as Nancy is concerned, she’s going back there with a stranger.

Your panel at Bloody Scotland centres around ‘Dark Islands’. Why do they make such good settings for crime novels?

“I think islands have this extra intensity to them.  I visited the Scottish slate islands of Seil, Easdale and Luing during a writing retreat and took inspiration from them for the book. I live in London and I’m used to being able to get anywhere I want at any time of day or night, but on these small islands the ferries stop and you can’t leave. As a city dweller, I found that really amazing. They’re also very wind swept, distant and can be quite old fashioned – which is not to smear the people who live there at all – but they do have a more traditional feel about them that lends itself well to a novel setting.

“That, coupled with weather that can be extreme and changeable – creates perfect conditions for a tensely plotted book. You’ve also got a fixed number of people living in a place like that – so in many ways it’s like an extended escape room setting – which suits the crime genre perfectly.”

Liz Webb will appear at Bloody Scotland at our Dark Islands event on Friday the 13th of September at the Holy Trinity Church.

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Event

Join us for a special Launch Event...

Join us for this special standalone event with the brilliant Val McDermid, who’ll be helping us to launch the 2024 Bloody Scotland programme. Val will be in conversation with Craig Robertson about her dark and bloody latest novel, Queen MacBeth.

Shakespeare fed us the myth of the Macbeths as murderous conspirators. But now Val McDermid drags the truth out of the shadows, exposing the patriarchal prejudices of history. Expect the unexpected. A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three companions – a healer, a weaver and a seer. The men hunting her will kill her – because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no lady: she is the first queen of Scotland, married to a king called Macbeth. Thursday 20th June at 1.30pm in The Golden Lion Hotel, Stirling. Tickets £6/£5

Thursday 20 June 2024, 13:30


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Bloody Scotland wouldn’t run without the dedication of eager volunteers, keeping the crowds safe, the tech running and the authors guided. Every year we look for Front of House Assistants, Author Hospitality Assistants, Author Signing Assistants and Festival Marketing Assistants to help out our busy team.

2024 applications will open soon.

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Bloody Scotland, Scotland’s international crime writing festival is an independent, not for profit charity, established in 2011 to present the very best of Scottish and international crime writing. We rely on a combination of sponsorship, grants, box office and donations to support our activity.

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