Playing Football Fiction

I'm looking for a publisher.
Seriously, I am. My masters is finished. I wrote a book for it. A novel about football. Well actually it's about 3f's. Football, fightin' and the things people do to each other when they love each other very much (and sometimes when they don't). It's about a lot more than that obviously, but it keeps things simple if anybody ever asks me.

It was shortlisted for the 2007 Queensland Premier's Literary Award Emerging Author category. Let me tell you, it's easier writing that down than it is telling people. Some astute judges really liked it and some very smart MA examiners did as well, so it's definitely got something going for it.

It's about a Scottish lad struggling in Australia - a subject close to my heart. It's about cultural bridges, or the lack of them, and how easy it is for immigrants to become entrenched in their own culture when they're living somewhere else.

For Scots in Australia, so far away from home, the view of the auld country can take on a purple heathered state of mind. The back-at-home ideology never leaves any of us, but in the hearts and houses of a stubborn few, it can become exaggerated. Scotland starts to look like it does on the top of a shortbread tin. A wee scottie dog wearing a tartan jacket at the feet of a piper wearing a serious pair of puffy cheeks in front of a castle, one of the famous ones, by the water on a warm summer's evening.

All that's missing is the malt.

Hey, I get like that sometimes myself. I hanker for a good fish supper, the patter and the pub. I'm in the process of buying a kilt as I write this. So I'm not saying I've moved on, but I've settled in. I don't think I'll ever stop wondering what it was that made it so hard though. I like the sun and the warmth and the beach and being able to take the bairns to the park without a raincoat or their wellies or lighting a fire when we get in. But like the one on the tin, I feel like there's something missing from the picture.

Hey, the book's not autobiographical by any means, all I'm saying is, I'm intimately familiar with the territory.

Some Tartan Hyde, was the original title, but it'll be The Simplest Game from here.

Like I say, I'm up for it. I'm actively looking for the pass into space, a publisher willing to pursue a unique perspective on football fiction and put it into print... so if ye know any body that might be interested...