“The history and culture of the highlands is fundamental to how scotland as a whole thinks of itself”

David Graham and Kirsty Gunn are co-founders of a new publishing company, North House Press, based in Rogart. David has a publishing background and Kirsty is an award winning, internationally published author. Their aim is to is to engage in the culture of Scotland in imaginative, innovative and exciting ways – bringing new and established voices back into our world.

Kyle Chronicle: You both have impressive careers. Can you tell us about your background and your time at Canongate Books which achieved great success with the Booker Winner Life of Pi?

David Graham: I started my career as a van driver for the Bargain Books Chain based in Edinburgh and shortly after helped set up their wholesale division, Lomond Books. My job was touring the Highlands with a van load of books and selling them to any outlet willing to stock books on Scotland. It was a fun job, being paid to travel all over the Highlands (my territory was everything north of Stirling) and I learned a lot about selling... and of course the Highlands!


Canongate came quite a bit later, after learning more about publishing during a stint in London at a number of companies there. My six years as MD at Canongate were tremendous fun, helping grow a sub £2M and loss-making business to one with revenue of over £8M and regular healthy profits was very rewarding. Winning The Booker Prize with Life of Pi played a key part in that development, but Canongate was definitely not a one trick pony and at the time published a range of ambitious and at times challenging books which went on to be commercially as well as critically successful. Luck always plays a big part in publishing, and winning prizes (a huge factor especially in literary publishing) requires a bucket load of good fortune! Nevertheless, I am a believer in that old saying that “you make your own luck”. 


KC: Why did you and Kirsty decide to start North House Press? What’s your motivation?


DG: I think seeing how the life and culture of The Highlands is so under-represented down south made us want to change this. The history and culture of The Highlands is so fundamental to the how Scotland as a whole thinks of itself. But its representation is so often a horribly simplified “Shortbread Tin” version of the rich and complex life and culture up here. It’s insulting, really, and we wanted to show the depth and nuance of Highland culture and get away from the endless repetition of the same old nonsense that passes for what people abroad think of when they think of The Highlands.


KC: Tell us more about Neil Gunn and why did you choose his books to be the first published by your new publishing company.

DG: First and foremost, Gunn is a fabulous writer, born in Dunbeath, Caithness, he lived and worked pretty much his whole life in the Highlands, and all his literary work is deeply rooted in the landscape here and the people who live in it. But his work is the opposite of what I described above and is always moving, profound and nuanced. What’s more, as The Scotsman said, “Modern Scottish fiction reaches its highest peak in the novels of Neil M. Gunn... Like Hardy, and indeed Joyce... he transcends regionalism and acquires universality.”


And he is now woefully overlooked – in the media and academia – and has fallen off the reading public’s radar. The centenary of his remarkable debut The Grey Coast presented us with an ideal opportunity to rekindle interest in his work, here in the Highlands but also further afield, so publishing this and two other long out-of-print titles – Blood Hunt and The Serpent–, in beautiful editions will, I hope, to be the start of a Gunn renaissance!


KC: What’s next? Can you tell us a bit about your plans for the future? 


DG: First up, coming this September we have a wonderful book by Dundee-based poet Beth McDonough – A Year in Water which celebrates the challenges and joys of outdoor swimming. Organised around the calendar year, this is a beautiful and inspirational illustrated companion. Through quietly humorous and observant prose, inspirational advice, lucid poetry, and waterside recipes, Beth celebrates the joys and challenges of all-year-round open water swimming in Scotland. Her poetry is wonderful and visceral and puts you, the reader, knee deep in the freezing waters of the Tay in February... So you don’t actually have to do it yourself. It’s also filled with gorgeous illustrations by the very talented Grace Gubbins of seascapes and lochsides and riverbanks. We’re aware how incredibly popular wild swimming (though Beth resists that term) is today, so hope this will be the perfect gift for the enthusiast in everyone’s family and friendship group. We have titles lining up for 2027 and beyond, but we are deliberately keeping it small; four to six new titles per year is our max. For the curious, keep an eye on our website www.northhousepress.co.uk 


KC: How do you go about spotting who to publish?

DG: It’s a mix really, we have both spent a lifetime in publishing, writing and teaching future writers... So we know a lot of them! Some ideas come to us from others; some we have an idea for a book and try and find the perfect marriage between subject and author... and some things just come out of blue and occasionally just land in our laps. We have an open submissions policy at North House Press. Honestly it’s hard to maintain an open door, there are only two of us and we’re massively stretched across all the demands of commissioning and publishing books well, but we do want to leave our door open to unpublished authors – especially those based here or writing about here. But for anyone submitting to us, I’d like to ask them to be patient, we will reply eventually... and also bear in mind the very small size of our list. I can say with certainty I’ve already turned down a very good book that, were I still running a modestly sized Indy, I’d have taken on. But for four to six books a year we have to be incredibly focussed and very picky. 


“Writing is not easy, it’s hard work, and if you find it easy you’re either an absolute stand-out genius, or you’re not doing it right”

KC: Do you have any advice for up-and-coming writers and how to get published?

DG: Firstly, practise, practise, practise. And read, read, read. You can’t become a writer unless you’re a reader. Writing is not easy, it’s hard work and if you find it easy you’re either an absolute stand-out genius, or you’re not doing it right. A lot of work goes into becoming a good writer. I certainly have no ambitions in that direction, it’s much too hard and I am much too lazy to be a writer. I live with one and I see the blood, sweat and tears that goes into every page of a book. If you’re starting out, there are a host of opportunities to learn from others and to practise your craft in creative writing groups, classes and courses (Moniack Mhor, just outside Inverness runs excellent week-long residential courses throughout the year). Try and get your work published in small magazines or online in the first instance. When you think you’re ready to approach a publisher or agent, research who to approach. Both agents and publishers tend to have areas of interest and expertise. It’s frustrating the number of submission we get that really wouldn’t fit on the North House Press’ list, regardless of its quality, if it’s not in our niche we won’t publish it. 


KC: Do you have a favourite genre both to publish and read – and why? DG: Alongside literary fiction and narrative non-fiction I’ve enjoyed publishing quite a lot of nature writing, which I also love. One of my most enjoyable publishing experiences was launching Wild Places, by Robert MacFarlane when I was at Granta. Beth’s book is our first nature-related publication at North House Press, but I’d love to do more. This region is so spectacularly beautiful and now so worryingly under threat with the proliferation of the nothing-like-a-farm wind turbines. We have it bad round us, but the plans for the Kyle are absolutely monstrous. I really admire the grass roots resistance to what’s happening in the Kyle and hope it very much has success. There is still much to celebrate and learn about nature in Scotland and I’d love to publish more books into this area.

KC: What’s your favourite spot in the Kyle of Sutherland area?


DG: My father was a passionate fisher, and one of his favourite fishing spots was the Oykel river. He would take me and my brother on trips to fish this renowned river and even when we weren’t catching fish (which was much more often than not) it’s such a pretty strath that I have very fond memories of it. So for its beauty and the memories it prompts, anywhere along the lower Oykel would have to be my favourite spot in the Kyle.

By Silvia Muras

David Graham has managed independent publishing companies for the last 25 years and has driven the international successes of companies Canongate Books, Granta, Pavilion Books, and BT Batsford.

Kyle Chronicle readers can take advantage of the 20% discount on North Press books - only for a limited time! Visit their shop here