Granite Noir: In Conversation with Tina Baker

Granite Noir: In Conversation with Tina Baker

Spend a fascinating hour with journalist and broadcaster turned author Tina Baker as we delve into her new novel Make Me Clean, with chair Fiona Stalker.

She will leave your surfaces sparkling. But she may well leave you dead… Maria is a good woman and a good cleaner. If you’re thinking of hiring her, you should probably know that Maria might have killed the terrible husband, the terrible boss and the terrible neighbours. She may also have murdered the man she loved. She didn’t set out to kill anyone, of course, but her clients have hired her to clean up their lives, and she takes her job seriously. 

This event will also feature Mandy MacDonald reading Diamond0s Are a Girl’s Best Friend as part of our Locals in the Limelight scheme.

Chaired by Fiona Stalker

This event will be live streamed and can be viewed online.

Tina Baker

Tina Baker, the daughter of a window cleaner and fairground traveller, worked as a journalist and broadcaster for thirty years and is probably best known as a television critic for the BBC and GMTV. After so many hours watching soaps gave her a widescreen bum, she got off it and won Celebrity Fit Club. She now avoids writing-induced DVT by working as a Fitness Instructor.
Call Me Mummy was Tina’s first novel, inspired by her own unsuccessful attempts to become a mother. Despite the grief of that, she’s not stolen a child – so far. But she does rescue cats, whether they want to be rescued or not.

Fiona Stalker

Fiona Stalker is a Senior Presenter and Reporter at BBC Scotland. She presents programme across TV & radio including Drivetime and The Sunday Show on BBC Radio Scotland and Seven Days on the BBC Scotland channel . Fiona spent many years as a reporter within Aberdeen newsroom. She previously worked for Reuters as Scotland Correspondent, lectured in journalism, and managed her own media training company.

Mandy MacDonald

Mandy MacDonald is a writer, translator, editor and musician living in Aberdeen city. Born in Australia, she came to Britain as a student in the late 1960s and hasn’t gone home yet. As well as Cambridge and London, she has lived and worked in Cuba and Central America, and has written widely on (and in) those places.

Mandy has been writing poems for most of her life, but was only persuaded to show them to anyone a decade or so ago. Her work now appears in many print and online publications in Scotland and further afield. She often likes to approach serious topics with humour and wit. Her 2020 pamphlet The Temperature of Blue is available here.

Mandy believes that poetry can change the world, but is cultivating an allotment just in case.