New Dorothy Dunnett Society Website launched
Languishing Locked in (Digital) Literacy
Welcome to the new Dorothy Dunnett Society website, our new home on the web.
In 2025 the Board of Trustees decided to develop a new Dorothy Dunnett Society website to reflect the changing needs of both readers and the Society. We wanted to create a space that would appeal to new and longstanding members, make the Society and Dorothy Dunnett’s work easier to discover, and provide a welcoming point of contact for everyone who shares our enthusiasm for her writing.
When we began the project, the words we used to describe what we wanted were clear, concise, fresh and appealing, and we have worked hard to fulfil that brief. We engaged professional developers Pooka & Co, who helped us think through what we wanted the website to do as well as undertaking the technical development. Along the way, those of us more accustomed to Dunnett vocabulary have had to master an entirely new lexicon: oriflamme, insouciance and malmsey have temporarily given way to landing pages, personas and alt text.
One of the pleasures (and challenges) of developing the new site was deciding how it should look. We wanted something fresh and distinctive, but also something that felt unmistakably connected to Dorothy Dunnett and the historical worlds of her novels.
The answer came from François Clouet’s portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, from around 1558 during the action in Checkmate. This provided inspiration for the palette for our website: deep lapis blue, warm parchment and rich red, with touches of gold. Colours drawn from the Renaissance world have become the basis for our twenty-first-century website in meeting of old and new for the Society. You can find this in the Royal Collection Trust here.
Our previous website was created and managed by Janet McCourt, to whom we owe an enormous debt of gratitude. Janet helped the site weather changes in technology, increasing technical demands, squabbling plug-ins and invasions by bots. While the new website gives us room to grow, it is very much built on the foundations established in 2011. No one knows our presence on the web better, and Janet’s wise counsel has been invaluable throughout this project.
Creating the new website for the Society has been a team effort, and like the soldiers of St Mary’s we have all had our individual missions. Those involved in the project have included: Lesley Burnie, Nicky Cannon, Deborah Conway Read, Sandra Hall, Jill Harrison, Julia Hart, Simon Hedges, Jenna Hegarty, Lisa Hopkins, Heather Jacobson and Suzanne McNeill. The website team also owes thanks to Tom Blackie for allowing the use of his wonderful photographs, and to Alan Cannon, for chasing down website bugs before launch like Jerott chasing escaped horses.
Building the website has allowed us to explore more about our Society and how it can develop in the future. Most importantly, the website is not a finished museum piece, but has been designed to grow with the Society. More articles, research, archive material, news and events will continue to appear. We hope that you will enjoy it and find lots to explore.
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