Members of the public are being offered the chance to contribute a stitch to welcome panels to go on show at the new permanent home for the Great Tapestry of Scotland. The seed of the idea for the Great Tapestry of Scotland came from Alexander McCall Smith. He shared his dream with historian Alistair Moffat and artist Andrew Crummy and, […]

Cunard’s Literature Festival at Sea is a seven-night Transatlantic Crossing, which departs out of Southampton on December 1 and arrives in New York on December 8, 2020. The event, curated by the programming team at Cheltenham Literature Festival, will bring together some of the most renowned names in the literary world. The voyage will be headlined […]

Join Alexander McCall Smith on a magical journey into the heart of his beloved Botswana — a Belmond Safari. Belmond have once again asked Alexander to lead a luxury safari in Botswana — and he was thrilled to say yes! During the six-night safari in September 2020, he will share his memories and personal experiences of […]

Alexander McCall Smith, or Sandy to his friends and readers, has achieved many things this year but top of the list has to be the Christmas Day slot on BBC Radio 4 for one of his delightful short stories. And that is just one of four of his stories that will be available to listeners […]

A BBC Radio 3 Christmas treat for Alexander McCall Smith fans everywhere – Tune into BBC Radio 3 on Tuesday 17th December at 2pm. The best-selling author reads selections from his work, in a special concert of readings and appropriate music, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra with conductor David Parry. This is an extended broadcast that […]

Alexander McCall Smith, the best-selling author of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series, has shared his top story-writing tips with the 11-year-old winner of a Sunday Times Scotland short story writing competition. The author described the tale by Louisa Sheridan of Kelvinside Academy Junior School in Glasgow as “a little classic”. It told the story […]

These Are The Hands, a new album with words by Alexander McCall Smith and music composed by James Ross is now available. The music and the songs celebrate the presence of the sea in Scottish life, past and present. The sea defines Scotland’s character: it gives us our weather, our skies, and, even today, an important part of […]

A picture can paint a thousand words, but what about a vintage photograph? In 2015 Alexander McCall Smith wrote a book entitled Chance Developments: Unexpected Love Stories, in which he imagined the stories behind five chanced-upon black and white photographs. Who were those people, why were they smiling, what made them sad? He so enjoyed the experience that […]

A very good reason to celebrate: 2018 is the twentieth anniversary of publication of The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith—20 years of delightfully different books, page-after-page of humanity, kindness, humour and forgiveness, and in short, sheer joy. The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series started life as a short story written for friends but took hold […]

Readers attending Alexander’s events in Dubai and Australia have been taken with a poem he read, The Language of Pilots. This poem is now included in Emirates Literature Festival 10th Anniversary book, For the Love of Words but we are pleased to reproduce it here too. The language of pilots By Alexander McCall Smith   They speak with […]