Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander McCall Smith
R. Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, is a British writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In the late 20th century, McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees concerned with these issues...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth24 August 1948
thinking fiction helping
I enjoy women's conversation, and I think that helps me to describe them in fiction.
block thinking concern-for-others
What I really like investigating in my novels: what is it that makes an intimate society, that makes a society in which moral concern for others will be possible? Part of that I think are manners and ritual. We tried to get rid of manners, we tried to abolish manners in the '60s. Manners were very, very old-fashioned and un-cool. And of course we didn't realise that manners are the building blocks of proper moral relationships between people.
book writing two
If you want to write, do two things - read lots of books and also, in your own writing, practise. Just write and write and then write again. persist. And never be put off or discouraged. You can do it!
writing thinking negative
Life consists of positive and negative features, and I think that it is permissible to write about both.
joy world emotion
Well, Id say all of us are a combination of moods and emotions. In my day to day life I dont go around skipping, but at times one can feel sheer exhilarating joy at the world.
acceptance scotland united-states
Whatever Scotland was, it was not a matriarchy; whereas the United States was a profoundly matriarchal society - and much more feminine than would be suggested by all that male bravado. That was a front, and a misleading one at that; underneath the male swagger lay a passive acceptance of female dominance - a fact not always appreciated by outsiders.
three older-sister large-family
I have three older sisters, so we were a reasonably large family and, in general, a happy one.
men dust looks
I would certainly never consider myself a Renaissance Man; I'm not fit to look at the dust from the chariot wheels of many of those who have gone before me.
cutting pride technology
Oh I love gadgets and I pride myself on keeping at the cutting edge of technology.
people together losing
One of the most destructive things that's happening in modern society is that we are losing our sense of the bonds that bind people together - which can lead to nightmares of social collapse.
sea rivers sight
The Okavango Delta is an astonishing sight: the great Okavango River, rather than flow towards the sea, flows inland, into the sands of the Kalahari.
dysfunction noir addresses
Every novel presents a slice of life. A noir policier for example presents one slice, one that perhaps addresses social dysfunction or some sort of pathology, while mine present a slice that is more upbeat and affirmative.
sex rooms bed
She was made for untidy rooms and rumpled beds.
new-york awful wonderful
New York is a wonderful place to be up, an awful place to be down.