Alexander McCall Smith

Story Calendar

Every month, a new piece of writing by Alexander will be posted here on this site making up a calendar of stories every year. Some will be short stories, some will be articles, and some will be sneak previews from books not yet released. Perfect to read with your morning coffee!

Check back to this page regularly to see what has been added or sign up below.

Latest Stories

Notebook and pen by Iain McIntosh

April 2018

A Story for April: The Director

The Director first appeared in the New Statesman magazine 1 This is the story of a friendship. It takes place over a number of years, starting when the two people involved were eight and ending when they were twenty-nine. It starts in Scotland and ends there, although part of it takes place in Australia. It […]

Typewriter by Iain McIntosh

March 2018

A Story for March: Scandinavian Noir in Twelve Chapters

As Scotland, indeed the entire UK, lies deep under snow (just as February ends and Spring is meant to be on the way), Alexander turns to an area of the world where the winters are even colder and the area of writing now referred to as Scandinavian Noir… Scandinavian Noir is now established as one of the […]

Notebook and pen by Iain McIntosh

February 2018

A Short Story for February: Australia

Australia. This story by Alexander McCall Smith first appeared in the Melbourne Age newspaper. An odd thing has been happening to me. If I consulted a therapist about it, I can imagine the exchange might go as follows: Therapist: So, what’s the trouble? (Now, I’m not sure that therapists actually say anything quite as direct as that. […]

Notebook and pen by Iain McIntosh

December 2017

A Story for December: Bertie’s Christmas

Bertie’s Christmas was first published in The Scotsman newspaper in 2010. Bertie’s Christmas: Several factors had combined to improve summer for Bertie Pollock (6), son of Stuart Pollock (39) and Irene Pollock (38), of Scotland Street (44). The most important of these was the cessation, at least for the months of July and August, of […]

Scotland Street masthead

November 2017

AN EXTRA STORY – ON THE DAY OF A SCOTLAND v ALL BLACKS RUGBY MATCH

A story of Bertie at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh for a Scotland v the All Blacks rugby match. This is an extract from from A Time of Love and Tartan—a Scotland Street novel. The existential happiness of 13-0.  Ranald Braveheart Macpherson was delivered to the Pollock flat in Scotland Street wearing his Macpherson tartan kilt with […]

November 2017

A Story for November: My Italian Bulldozer

This is an extract from the stand alone novel. My Italian Bulldozer. Scotland fell away beneath him, a stretch of green pasture, of hills, of swirling mist. Suddenly they were bathed in sunlight; fields of cloud, topped with crenellations of white, now lay beneath them as their plane pointed south. In his window seat he […]

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