mapping the streets These larger-than-life portraits of young men posted up on buildings in Old Town, Edinburgh, give a flavour of the kind of street art found in my new novel. These portraits form part of a project titled Our Nation's Sons, a collaboration between teacher Joe Caslin and Edinburgh College of Art. In my story, a rundown neighbourhood in a capital city in a fictional Central Europe country is slowly reoccupied by its former occupants by a similar means - a wave of hugh portraits appear, carved by an anonymous artist out of decades of old fliers and event posters which have been pasted over the brickwork of abandoned homes and businesses. Its a form of mapping and it reminds me of some initial conversations I've been having with cartographer/calligrapher Michela for the book. She has come back to me after reading the first two chapters in draft format with a rich interpretation of how to illustrate my story with maps of many kinds, from relationship maps to maps of perception, which will reveal how the principal characters perceive each other and the situation they are in in different ways. A portrait writ large across a wall is a geographical and biographical boundary in its own right. I like the idea of the relational maps working in conjunction with the text to 'visualise' what is happening, and what is being explored thematically.