I really like January. It carries none of the bustle and hassle of December, but instead has a fresh feeling, as though the cellophane has just been removed from the new year.
There is a trade-off here, though. The relative stillness of the month means that nothing particularly literary is happening right now. We need to wait until March for both the St Andrews poetry festival – or StAnza – and the Scottish Poetry Slam Championship in Glasgow. Many other literary fairs and gatherings don’t happen until summer. Even the Scottish Book Trust has given participants until the end of this month to enter their December 50-word story competition.
Outside of the literary scene, I would normally take part in Fun a Day Dundee. This is aimed at artists rather than writers, but it’s to help them through the slump of January. I usually find a way to incorporate text. However, that event isn’t running in its usual form this year, although hopes are high for 2025.
The best I can do at the moment is to complete the books I borrowed for the readathon a couple of weeks ago and return them to the library.
Gavin Cameron 