Mystery!

Added on 10 February 2018

Down by the shore on the croft, where the woods go right down to the sea, there is an old aspen tree with a hollow branch. It's an old favourite. Last weekend, on a whim, I peered into the hole. To my amazement, inside was a curled up butterfish. Who put it there? Will they come back and get it?...

Hibernation season

Added on 30 January 2018

No self-respecting bear would be showing its nose out of its den in weather like this – each day another gale blasts through. The inshore shipping forecast is for the sea state known as ‘high’ – beyond rough, beyond very rough, a high sea is an unthinkably dangerous place to ...

Writing History Fiction

Added on 27 January 2018

I will be leading a masterclass in writing historical fiction as part of the Aye Write festival this year, on Saturday 17 March, 12-1.30 at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. All welcome! I'll also be reading from The Walrus Mutterer at the Ullapool Book Festival on Friday 11 May, at 11.30am, when...

Dormancy

Added on 27 January 2018

The day after I got back from New Zealand I was felled by flu, and have been in bed mostly since then, just now starting to get back to something like normality, although it will be a while until I feel properly better, I fear. I have a spent a lot of time over the past 12 days just staring out of ...

Fronds from Down Under

Added on 15 January 2018

I have been away in China and New Zealand since November, and am now back home to a rather chillier climate with a new year resolution to share, weekly, some of things I wonder about. My favourite (non-human) thing about New Zealand was its forests and the most wonderful thing about them was the fer...

What kind of retreats do you like?

Added on 12 November 2017

I recently ran a survey about creative writing retreats, in order to find out what people prefer. Over the years I have run more than 20 weeks of retreats and I’d like to do so again. But things have changed around here – the venues I have used locally have either changed hands or are ru...