be guid tae yer mammy
By Emma Grae
Narrated by three generations of women – a darkly comic family drama set in modern-day Scotland.
Publication date: May 2021
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A Scots family drama about three generations chasing dreams and happiness under a dysfunctional matriarch who isn’t who she appears to be. Least of all when an ageing film star makes an unexpected return…
Kate and her Granny Jean have nothing in common. Jean’s great claim to fame is raising her weans without two pennies to rub together, and Kate’s an aspiring scriptwriter whose anxiety and OCD have her stuck on bad thought after bad thought. But what Jean’s Glaswegian family don’t know is that the woman who likes nothing more than a guid natter dreamed of being a film star and came a hairsbreadth away from making it a reality.
Now in her nineties, Jean’s a force to be reckoned with and a bad mammy to youngest daughter Marie. But after a lifetime of agreeing to her petty whims, Marie takes a stand. As Jean faces her failings as a mammy head-on when the family falls apart, Kate must fight her demons when something scarier than her worst bad thought becomes a reality, or let go of her dream of the silver screen forever.
© 2019 Elisabeth Graham
© 2019 Elisabeth Graham
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Emma Grae
Emma Grae is a Scottish author and journalist from Glasgow.
She has been writing in Scots since she was a student at the University of Strathclyde, tipsily coauthoring poems with fellow writer Lorna Wallace before moving on to write fiction in the language.
She has published fiction and poetry in the UK and Ireland since 2014 in journals including The Honest Ulsterman, From Glasgow to Saturn and The Open Mouse.
As a journalist, she writes under her birth surname, Guinness, and has bylines in a number of publications including Cosmopolitan, the Huffington Post and the Metro.
Be guid tae yer mammy is her first novel.
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Black smoke fae the ferry’s funnels billows up intae the grey sky. A sharp cramp shoots through ma body, and ah take a deep breath o the salty air, remindin masel that any lassie who hus a big family will go tae Heaven. Ah focus ma eyes oan the skyline, oan hame. Grey and broon dots clustered at the bottom o green and yella hills. Fae there, the ferry would look like a huge, black dragon, belchin smoke and steam. Ah shut ma eyes, fillin ma lungs wi mair o the sea air. They open suddenly as the ferry bounces ower a wave, but ah know better than tae grab the haundrail, dirtied broon by seagull shite and feathers. Mammy always said that fur every daft Jeannie there wis a daft Johnny, and fur aw Donald hus a problem wi the drink, he’s naught but guid tae me and oor lassies.
Emma Grae has written 13 private updates. You can pledge to get access to them all.
21st October 2020 An Update and Scots Fiction: 'Jimmy and his wee Darlin Alexa'Hello, everyone!
I hope you're all safe and well as we continue through this crazy year. Over at Unbound HQ, I'm working with a designer to get be guid tae yer mammy's cover perfect, and hopefully, I'll be able to share it in the not-too-distant future!
I've also got some more extremely exciting Scots news to announce in due course, as well as more fiction for you to read as you await the novel…
11th August 2020 'BigThick and Sally's Gnashers' read by Lois TuckerHello, everyone!
Last night, the brilliant Lois Tucker brought my short story BigThick and Sally's Gnashers as part of Liars' League's online Women & Girls event.
You can listen to her rendition here, or if you're simply wanting to read the story, it's also been published on the Liars' League website.
Best wishes,
Emma
P.S. A little birdy at Unbound told me that be guid tae yer mammy…
28th July 2020 Liars' League and a Glaswegian Dominatrix!Hello everyone!
I'm chuffed to say that my Scots short story about an online dominatrix is being performed by an actor at Liars' League London's 'Women and Girls' event on August 11 at The Pheonix, Cavendish Square.
Tickets are £5 online or on the door, and I can guarantee a good laugh if you come along.
However, don't worry if you're not in the area, the actor's reading of my short story…
1st July 2020 Fiction - 'Dancin wi the Rhona'Hello everyone!
I hope you're all holding up okay during this difficult time. I wanted to give back for your patience in waiting for be guid tae yer mammy, so I've attached a short story inspired by my experience of coronavirus symptoms. Hopefully, it will get a few laughs!
A huge thanks goes out to Sheena Scott for providing me with a relative's letter from 1850 that also helped inspire the…
16th April 2020 Coronavirus and the publishing industryHello, lovely people!
I hope that you're all safe and well during this extremely difficult time.
Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic is affecting every industry including publishing. This means that Unbound has made the difficult decision to push some of their titles out to give them the best possible chance in the marketplace.
Be guid tae yer mammy's publication date has now been rescheduled…
24th January 2020 Burns Day and the Scots languageIt's Burn's Day tomorrow, and I wanted to write a little update about the Scots language, and how the process of crowdfunding has helped me to embrace it for what it is - a language in its own right.
When I first started toying with Scots back in 2014, it came to me naturally, but at the time, I saw it as nothing more than a dialect. It was unfortunate because I wanted to be bilingual without realising…
These people are helping to fund be guid tae yer mammy.
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Aidan McQuade
Jenny Nicol
Rick Burin
Amanda Jean
Isabella Fausti
Deborah Schauffler
Roxane Girard
Elle Spellman
Victoria Guinness
Rozita Gerhardt
Alex Ballantyne
Allison Strachan
Jannes Schuiling
Daniel Gallagher
Jason Ballinger
Claire Grant
Lorna Fergusson
Natalie Trotter-King
Laura McCormick
Lloyd Hemming
Chris Nicolson
Louis Collins
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