Ann Lingard - fiction writing

Writing: fiction

‘As a scientist myself, I feel that scientists often get a ‘bad press’ in novels - only rarely are they portrayed as likeable or even fairly ordinary people. I hope I’ve managed to change that perception in the fiction that I’ve written - ‘scientists’ (a very generalised term!) are interesting, dreary, infuriating, warm-hearted; they fall in love, they have families, worry about mortgages and blocked drains, have hobbies or watch too much TV … they’re human!’

Figure in a Landscape (Headline Review; 1996; p/b ISBN 0-7472-5296-3 )
		In her cottage on a remote Scottish island, Harriet Falmer has almost forgotten that solitude is not the normal human state. Conscious of the burden of guilt that drove her here, she lives from day to day, working in her garden, fishing, exploring the hills - herself as much a part of the landscape as the curlews and the deer. Apart from occasional trips to a distant village, her contact with the outside world is limited, and contact with her one-time husband and her lost son take place only in her imagination. Harriet is dismayed when zoologist Jos Allen sets up camp nearby, his purpose a study of seal behaviour patterns. In a rage she tries to sabotage his work, but he won’t easily be dislodged: it is Harriet herself who is forced to move to a bizarre new dwelling when a storm destroys her cottage. Her new haven, and the changes that have come, start a healing process that brings a sense of purpose to Harriet’s life.
Paperback £3.00 + p&p Order from the author or from amazon.co.uk		'Extraordinary impact … we shall hear more of Ann Lingard’. Birmingham Post ‘Simple but powerful story.’ Chapman


‘Let us, as bioscientists, set ourselves a target of getting scientists into fiction and drama ... by identifying what we have to offer, and by persuading writers that, although they might not have recognised it before, they need us to enrich their fiction, whether poetry, drama or prose.’ From Taking the anoraks out of fiction in The Biologist, June 2003.
The Fiddler’s Leg (Headline Review 1996; h/b ISBN 0-7472-5297-1)
Julian Kersland, a talented but crippled violinist and leader of a baroque ensemble in Glasgow, is the focus of the needs and theories of a diverse range of people. Early on, his school chaplain convinced him that the accident to his leg and the subsequent pain were necessary for the expression of his musical talent. Now, when Julian is in his 30s and wondering where his talent should lead him, both Margaret Gillespie, a solicitor’s wife, and Isobel Hutchinson, a medical student, are intrigued and attracted by his disability and his good looks. Julian, unaware that those around him see the leg rather than the man, is approaching crisis. He is obsessed by Isobel, harried by Margaret and tortured by the trauma associated with his talent. But one evening he tells Tom, a Scottish folk-fiddler, the story of his accident. In confronting the truth, he can begin the journey to acceptance.
‘Ann Lingard’s powerful new work proved to be my favourite book this year … extremely well written.’ Helen Peacocke, Oxford Times.		Hardback: £5.00 + p&p. Order from the author or from amazon.co.uk


‘The writer who is prepared to explore not only the words but also the pictures associated with science surely cannot fail to be inspired and intrigued: images of living cells spreading and moving, the bands of DNA on a gel, Poincaré diagrams showing the strange attractors of mathematical chaos, slices of rock seen by polarised light, scanning electron micrographs of viruses and flies’ eyes ... The different perception of these images by people with different backgrounds — artists, photographers, sculptors and scientists — is itself worth the writer’s attention.’ From Was Frankenstein an anorak? in Words and Pictures: Explaining Science through Art and Science, Cumbria Institute of the Arts 2003 (ISBN 1-86-9979133)
Seaside Pleasures (Littoralis Press, 2003; ISBN 0-9544572-0-X)
		When Matt Myers decides to spend the summer with his mother at the Shell House, he little guesses that he is about to step into the minefield of his family’s past and recent history … Anne Church, a young Victorian; Matt, art student; Hazel Myers, his mother; malacologist and parasitologist, Elizabeth Wilson: their stories — of obsessional loves and conflicting beliefs — are inextricably linked with each other and with the life and tragic death of Victorian evangelist Emily Gosse, wife of the naturalist Philip Henry Gosse. Seaside Pleasures ranges across time and geography, from Victorian Scotland to Africa in the 1960s and present-day England; the boundaries between fiction and fact become blurred, as the separate lives are woven together by the themes of shells and snails, science and religion, love and death — and the sea.
Paperback £8.99 +p&p. Order direct from Littoralis Press		‘Immensely readable and extremely clever, Seaside Pleasures is a remarkable novel.’ Ann Thwaite ‘A very fine piece of writing that, uniquely among modern novels, makes real use of science rather than simply wearing science on its sleeve … A true two-culture achievement.’ Matt Ridley ‘Ann Lingard has written a thoughtful, compelling story...a very human account. The book is a rockpool in itself, concealing seaside secrets as well as pleasures deep beneath the surface.’ Joan Cory, North Devon Journal ‘A really big book with a MIND behind it.’ Jane Gardam


Floating Stones (Online Originals, August 2003; ISBN 1-84045-105-X)
Set in north-west Scotland and Oxford, Floating Stones is the story of the obsessive love of two men — visiting geologist Stephen Rhodes and local shepherd Donnie McGregor — for local potter Anna Crowden; it is a story that brings Stephen, and his students Kat and Max, into intimate contact with the wild landscape of northern Sutherland, where they set up their temporary homes in tents and bothies, and that binds Kat, Donnie, Anna and Stephen into an inter-relationship whose complexity only gradually becomes clear; it is also the story of a man’s conflicting desires, for his wife and sons — stability, a safe home and intellectual workplace — and for his lover and the entirely different life that she represents.
(With grateful thanks to Lotte Glob whose own 'floating stones' supplied the inspiration for the story)		Floating Stones is available as an e-book for £6.00 from Online Originals. You can read a sample here.

Short Stories

Ann Lingard also writes short stories, which have been short-listed for the Ian St James Award, the Wells Literature Festival Award, as well as published or read on radio. Examples include: ‘The Chicken Run’, Chapman 63, 1991; ‘Garden Birds’, Acclaim, April 1994; and ‘Cats’, Chapman 81, 1995.

Putting the science into fiction

Ann is available to give illustrated talks on her books; for example ‘Seaside Pleasures: Philip Henry Gosse and the bathing-women’ and ‘Putting the science into fiction’; for details, please contact the author.