Janice Galloway – författare

In her latest collection of stories, Janice Galloway turns her unflinching gaze on relationships: the struggle to love against the odds, the overpowering yearning to communicate, and the extraordinary epiphanies where the World falls away leaving only the lovers. Love is, of course, where you find it, and it is here in an evening walk across a London bridge, a chip-shop pizza, Derek's mouth, or ham sandwiches cut into hearts. A brilliant observer of human frailty and tenderness, Janice Galloway examines the moments where lives split like a stone, where people are healed or broken by a word or the touch of a hand. Savagely accurate, vivid and unsentimental, these are painstakingly crafted stories: engaging, caustic, funny and terrifyingly true.

Comprising stories from her debut collection, Blood, and the critically acclaimed Where You Find It - this collection presents some of the best known and most loved works by one of Scotland's 'most gifted and original writers' (Times Literary Supplement). Each sharply observed, savagely accurate and brilliantly realised - the stories offer revelatory glimpses into everyday lives - from an unwelcome act of kindness at a bus stop, an evening walk across a London bridge, a welcome but uncomfortable summer break to a brutal lesson in trust. Here also are unflinching portrayals of relationships: the struggle to love against the odds, the overpowering yearning to communicate, and the extraordinary epiphanies where the world falls away leaving only the lovers. These are painstakingly crafted stories: engaging, funny and terrifyingly true, from a master of the form.

'A gripping narrative - a deeply moving study of love, loss and solitude' Independent on Sunday Celebrated nineteenth-century concert pianist and composer, editor and teacher, friend of Brahms - Clara Schumann was also the wife of Robert Schumann, the mother of his eight children, and the woman who cared for him through a series of crippling mental illnesses.A lyrical and vibrant account of two remarkable and highly dramatic musical careers, Clara is a novel about timeless, common things: about the inescapable influences of childhood, about creativity and marital life, about communication and silence, about how art is made and how art, in turn, may erode or save the life that nourishes it.'Some of the greatest words ever written on thwarted love since Romeo and Juliet' The Times

With "some of the greatest words ever written on thwarted love since Romeo and Juliet" (The Times, London), Clara reignites, from between the lines of history, the great love of Robert and Clara Schumann. This impassioned novel gives voice to Clara Wieck Schumann, one of the most celebrated pianists of the nineteenth century, who today is best remembered not for her music but for her marriage. "How often you must purchase my songs with invisibility and silence, little Clara," says Robert, and, for Clara, the price of his love is dear. Shrouded in alternate layers of music and silence, the Schumann union was anything but a lullaby, marked by her valiant struggle for self-expression and his tortuous descent into madness. With Clara, a deeply moving fugue of love, solitude, and artistic creation, Janice Galloway "has taken a melodic line and scored it for an orchestra" (The New York Times Book Review).

'BLOOD is a virtuoso work: the writing sinewy and beautiful. . . the integrity of vision coruscating; the whole driven by the author's restless experimentation with form. And at least two stories, 'Blood' itself and 'Fearless', will certainly end up in anthologies: not Best Scottish Writers, or Best Women Writers, but quite simply, Best' New Statesman and Society.'I remember reading a story by Janice Galloway for the first time; its urgency of voice, that certainty of expression, I wondered why I hadn't heard of her before; then discovered that she was altogether new to writing. It was some debut. She really is a fine writer' James Kelman'Blood is a virtuoso work: the writing sinewy and beautiful...the integrity of vision coruscating; the whole driven by the author's restless experimentation with form. And at least two stories, 'Blood' itself and 'Fearless', will certainly end up in anthologies: not Best Scottish Writers, or Best Women Writers, but, quite simply, best' New Statesman'A salutary collection...A marvellous revelation. A writer of passion and virtuosity shines through' Scotland on Sunday'Genuinely unnerving...she is a fierce, troubling new writer' Observer'Galloway flecks her hard-edged realism with impressionist grace-notes, a potent mixture that confirms her...as one of Scotland's best young writers' Sunday Telegraph'There is ample proof in Blood of Galloway's unassailable talent. Marvellously funny and beautifully paced' Glasgow Herald

From the corner of a darkened room Joy Stone watches herself. As memories of the deaths of her lover and mother surface unbidden, life for Joy narrows – to negotiating each day, each encounter, each second; to finding the trick to keep living. Told with shattering clarity and wry wit, this is a Scottish classic fit for our time.

"VALENTINE'S DAY MAKES ME EMBARRASSED," writes Janice Galloway in the opening lines of Where You Find It. The collection deals with love in its many guises -- the way relationships suddenly turn; how a look, a gesture, a word can heal or hurt. Love in Galloway's world is more likely to resemble a heart-shaped ham sandwich than the flowers and chocolates that bear the standard in more traditional "love stories."In the manner of Lorrie Moore and Raymond Carver, Galloway's tales explore the psychological aspects of love and the overpowering yearning to communicate. Whether it's the title piece, which tells of a prostitute's passion for her pimp's kisses, or "Valentine," in which a celebratory evening is undermined by minor disappointments and misunderstandings, the stories that comprise Where You Find It assume that powerful feelings always contain a dimension of disturbance.Upon the collection's much-lauded publication in the United Kingdom, one reviewer was moved to predict that Janice Galloway "will certainly end up in anthologies: not Best Scottish Writers or Best Women Writers, but, quite simply, best."

Cassie and Rona. Rona and Cassie. Two women on a driving holiday in Northern France. A caustic, coruscating and deeply funny account of morality, dysfunctional relationships and women abroad, Foreign Parts is that rare hybrid: a strikingly original novel about real life, told with accuracy, compassion and a truly saturnine delight.

In her latest collection of stories, Janice Galloway turns her unflinching gaze on relationships: the struggle to love against the odds, the overpowering yearning to communicate, and the extraordinary epiphanies where the World falls away leaving only the lovers. Love is, of course, where you find it, and it is here in an evening walk across a London bridge, a chip-shop pizza, Derek's mouth, or ham sandwiches cut into hearts. A brilliant observer of human frailty and tenderness, Janice Galloway examines the moments where lives split like a stone, where people are healed or broken by a word or the touch of a hand. Savagely accurate, vivid and unsentimental, these are painstakingly crafted stories: engaging, caustic, funny and terrifyingly true.

'A gripping narrative - a deeply moving study of love, loss and solitude' Independent on Sunday Celebrated nineteenth-century concert pianist and composer, editor and teacher, friend of Brahms - Clara Schumann was also the wife of Robert Schumann, the mother of his eight children, and the woman who cared for him through a series of crippling mental illnesses.A lyrical and vibrant account of two remarkable and highly dramatic musical careers, Clara is a novel about timeless, common things: about the inescapable influences of childhood, about creativity and marital life, about communication and silence, about how art is made and how art, in turn, may erode or save the life that nourishes it.'Some of the greatest words ever written on thwarted love since Romeo and Juliet' The Times

'BLOOD is a virtuoso work: the writing sinewy and beautiful. . . the integrity of vision coruscating; the whole driven by the author's restless experimentation with form. And at least two stories, 'Blood' itself and 'Fearless', will certainly end up in anthologies: not Best Scottish Writers, or Best Women Writers, but quite simply, Best' New Statesman and Society.'I remember reading a story by Janice Galloway for the first time; its urgency of voice, that certainty of expression, I wondered why I hadn't heard of her before; then discovered that she was altogether new to writing. It was some debut. She really is a fine writer' James Kelman'Blood is a virtuoso work: the writing sinewy and beautiful...the integrity of vision coruscating; the whole driven by the author's restless experimentation with form. And at least two stories, 'Blood' itself and 'Fearless', will certainly end up in anthologies: not Best Scottish Writers, or Best Women Writers, but, quite simply, best' New Statesman'A salutary collection...A marvellous revelation. A writer of passion and virtuosity shines through' Scotland on Sunday'Genuinely unnerving...she is a fierce, troubling new writer' Observer'Galloway flecks her hard-edged realism with impressionist grace-notes, a potent mixture that confirms her...as one of Scotland's best young writers' Sunday Telegraph'There is ample proof in Blood of Galloway's unassailable talent. Marvellously funny and beautifully paced' Glasgow Herald

From the corner of a darkened room Joy Stone watches herself. As memories of the deaths of her lover and mother surface unbidden, life for Joy narrows - to negotiating each day, each encounter, each second; to finding the trick to keep living. Told with shattering clarity and wry wit, this is a Scottish classic fit for our time.

From her earliest years with a boozy, accident-prone father and a reluctantly pragmatic mother, Janice Galloway grew up as a watcher - careful and vigilant. Then her parents' marriage broke up and mother and daughter moved to an attic above a doctor''s surgery. When her big sister Cora returned home, with her steady stream of boyfriends, snappy dress sense and matching temper, evasion became a way of life. This is a funny and telling book about the routine dependencies and confusions, hopes and triumphs of childhood; it is also a book about emergence, as, slowly, the beginnings of unsuspected rage pushed the silent girl towards her voice.

In the second volume of her memoirs, the prize-winning author Janice Galloway reveals how the child introduced in This is Not About Me evolved through her teenage years.When she started secondary school, Galloway was still sharing a bed with her mother and was more excited by Latin and school orchestra than by boys. But as she struggled with the physical and emotional changes of adolescence, almost everything she thought she knew began to change. Combining visceral descriptions of puberty, sex and school-room politics with the story of a family's secrets, Galloway casts her gaze on the morals and ambitions of one small town, in writing that is personal, defiant and eloquent.

From the beginning this novel's tension weaves warp and woof between hilarity and hell. Two women friends travel through France, encountering backroad-European misogynist crudities and the awkward experiences of being female, over thirty, with your teeth almost literally at your closest friend's throat, and "fancying men, but not liking them very much." Throughout Rona's random acts of innocent irritation and Cassie's caustic reactions, the funny and fumbled art of their compassion supersedes self-slaughter, stretches itself thin, but refuses to puncture, throughout years of pals together both on holiday and in troubled spirit.

Mary McGlynn, Janice Galloway Thomas Cousineau, Thomas Bernhard Nancy Blake, Robert Steiner Chris Hopkins, Elizabeth Bowen