Ricky Monahan Brown
Who are your favourite Scottish writers?
Robert Louis Stevenson, A.L. Kennedy, and the up-and-coming Ian Macartney.
What is your favourite Scottish novel or short story and why?
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Stevenson does so much in such a short novel/novella. The story of the effects on a character of living a life to which he is fundamentally unsuited is hard to shake off.
What piece of writing of yours are you most proud of?
Little Apples, as featured in my collection Terminal and Leamington Books’ Novella Express series. It seems to connect deeply and darkly with people.
What is your 274 Miles story about?
It’s a fable inspired by Stevenson’s enigmatic take on the form, about buttered toast and parallel universes.
Tell us about your writing process.
To paraphrase the late, great musician, Scott Walker, it’s very mysterious to me. There’s the beginning of an idea, then I let it ferment for a while. If it’s still alive a few weeks or months later, I’ll think about trying to manufacture a deadline to force myself to do something with it.
If you have one piece of writing advice, what would it be?
Finish something. Stare at its imperfections, fix them, expunge them, do whatever you need to do, but finish it.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’ve recently finished a draft of a novel that I describe as being akin to Mad Max in the early nineteenth century Highlands, and now I’m returning to what I hope will be my second poetry pamphlet. Poems about mortality and architecture, mostly.
How can readers connect with you and read your work?
The memoir Stroke: A 5% chance of survival is available wherever books are sold. The pamphlet drawer of letters is forthcoming from Broken Sleep Books. I’ve acquired the last few copies of Terminal’s print run, so readers can contact me directly for a copy.
I’m on most of the socials under my own name or versions of the handle ricky_ballboy.