Sally Magnusson - Music in the Dark at Aye Write 2023

The Open University is pleased to support Glasgow Life's Aye Write Book Festival 2023 'Sally Magnusson - Music in the Dark'.

Music in the Dark is the latest novel from Scottish broadcast journalist, television presenter, writer and OU Honorary Graduate Sally Magnusson. It is an exploration of unlooked-for love in later life, its contrariness and its awkward surprising joys – a story of resilience, memory and resurrection.

Jamesina Ross is long finished with men. But one night a stranger seeking lodgings knocks on the door of her tenement flat. He doesn’t recognise her, but she remembers him at once. Not that she plans to mention it. She has no intention of trusting anyone enough to let herself be vulnerable again.

A lifetime ago Jamesina Ross was bent on becoming a writer. She had a facility with words. She made up songs about the Highland glen where she lived and the kin who had worked that land for generations. When her community was threatened with eviction, she gave voice to that too. The women stood together, defiant and determined, but Jamesina’s music was no match for one of the most brutal confrontations of the Highland Clearances.

Jamesina has borne the disfigurements of that day ever since, on her face and inside her head. It marked the end of a life of promise and the beginning of a very different one. Her lodger thinks that if she would only dare to open the past, she might have the chance of a future.

For tickets (£13.44) and more information please go to the Glasgow Life website. 

There's a wide range of free online learning on the OU’s site OpenLearn, including the short courses Writing what you know, Start writing fiction, and the OpenLearn Scotland Hub of resources on our nation's history, society and culture. 

The OU also offers creative writing courses and qualifications, such as the modules Creative Writing and Advanced Creative Writing, a BA (Honours) English Literature and Creative Writing, and an MA in Creative Writing.