A mop of unruly hair, hands bedazzled with chunky rings, and tattoos etched on his arms where he has pushed the sleeves of his colourful jumper up. Michael Pedersen could be exactly the type of bohemian intellectual he narrates Edinburgh being full of in his upcoming novel, Muckle Flugga. Yet he feels far from the cold snobbery of the literati described in his book. He greets me warmly as we sit down in Summerhall Café to discuss everything from the unrealised romance of eating fruit, to friendship and loss, to even dutifully telling me his go-to karaoke song (it’s “Ring
of Fire” by Johnny Cash).
The award-winning poet and author, now the Edinburgh Makar (poet laureate) and the University of Edinburgh’s Writer in Residence, rose to prominence with the publication of his prose debut Boy Friends in 2022. The memoir reflects on male friendships and loss, particularly that of his friend who took his own life in 2018. Pedersen describes his new novel, Muckle Flugga, as a story of “landscaping lore, old bonds up against new. And at its core, it’s about friendship, a love story.” While different in medium, “I’m a traitor to all genres” Pedersen grins, many of the core themes of his writing – grief, friendship, and Scotland – stay the same.
The novel begins with one of the main characters, Firth, contemplating jumping off a bridge just outside of Edinburgh. “I wanted to tell the story of, here’s someone at their most desperate moments, and here’s how they might endure… it was the next step from exploring how I could talk about this emotionally and sensitively and pay tribute to the people I know who have died that way.” In the novel, Firth is a despondent writer who makes ends meet by working for an Edinburgh university where he apathetically convinces rich kids that their art is meaningful. When I ask him if that’s a reflection of his own experiences at the University of Edinburgh, he
laughingly assures me that although there is a part of himself in every character, that is not one of them.
Instead, he’s relished the opportunity to return Edinburgh to its origins as “the opposite of Oxbridge which was built to keep the public out and make a sacred place of learning. The University of Edinburgh wanted to have a sacred place of learning, but also to be a gift to the city and a public forum.” To fulfil this goal, Pedersen has organised regular events, hosting guests who range from Bernadine Evaristo to Alan Cumming, ensuring that each event is free and, crucially, open to the public.
Discussing Edinburgh’s heritage of arts and culture he emphasised, “Edinburgh has to be so careful because it’s such a popular festival city for August and for Hogmanay that we need to ensure that culture doesn’t stop in Edinburgh outside of August and December, that it exists and thrives all year round.” Although recently Scotland was given new funding for its art sector, Pedersen observed, “support of the arts is fun, but it has to have a stamina to it as well. You have to be there for the good times and the bad… let’s not get complacent.”
Pedersen’s devotion to his birthplace of Edinburgh, and Scotland as a whole, permeates all his writing. “I think I’ll always be tethered to Scotland,” he admits, despite having travelled and lived around the world. “In some ways, I’ve always been trying to leave, but then I’ve given up on those ambitions because the notion of being here is far too romantic for me.” This is despite what he describes as the sometimes frustrating relationship he has had with the bifurcated city, “When you’re in its favour, because it’s so small, you’re so prominent, and you get a lot of celebration and a lot of accolades… if you want to have that, and you’re outside of it, and it’s not happening for you, it can be a very frustrating thing because it’s so close.”
Despite having wrestled with the “split soul” of his birthplace and now living in Glasgow, Edinburgh in many ways remains Pedersen’s home, ultimately because of the people who are here. Pedersen’s life and work has been defined by friendships, many of them formed and cultivated in Edinburgh. Acknowledging that many may see Boy Friends as a “history of failed friendships,” he argues that the person does not have to still be in your life to consider it a successful friendship. Instead, he describes friendship as “as much as anything, maybe more than most things, as just risk.”
Asking him if he has any wisdom for the time at university when friendships often assume a newfound significance and intensity, he advises, “Throw yourself into all these different situations, just realizing and celebrating sometimes the impermanence of things like fast flung, really engaging friendships that maybe only last a term or a year or only the course of university… We’re all walking around with big bags of vulnerability inside of us that we’re trying to disguise as different things… we’re all just trying to find our fit before we lose our shape.”
His words touch a chord with me, and I confess to him that the first time I bought one of his books was for a friend whom I no longer speak to. In response, he thanks me. Regardless of whether the friend has remained, he declared “the most beautiful thing about Boy Friends is the number of friends that bought for friends… that activation that comes alongside it, and that unification of just lighting a fuse for the vitality and romanticism that is friendship.”
Muckle Flugga comes out on 22 May 2025. Consider buying it for someone you love, because as Pedersen told me, “When people have gifted the book to a friend, it’s the biggest accolade I could get.”
A proof copy of Muckle Flugga was kindly provided by Lighthouse Books. You can preorder your copy through their website here.
Illustration by Hal Purton @halpurton