On writing about spring

Added on 15 April 2017

Spring is here again, bringing primroses, geese overhead and all the other delights that come around at this time of year. I’ve just done a podcast of spring poems (here), and realise that I have sinned. Or have I? Reading an anthology of new poetry recently, I was struck by the editorial intr...

More good things bears do in the woods

Added on 08 April 2017

There are a couple of fascinating videos that I've been pointed to repeatedly over the past couple of weeks. The first one (here) is Suzanne Simard talking about trees communicating with each other. It's full of fascinating research about the ways that trees in a forest co-operate, passing c...

Preparing for bears

Added on 19 March 2017

Anyone who has read my novels (special offer here!) won’t be surprised that I’m in favour of the reintroduction of carnivores to Scotland. It’s an obvious solution to the problem we face of over-sized populations of deer. As usual I’m running a car with a massive dent in the...

28 Plays Later

Added on 04 March 2017

During the month of February I took part in a challenge called '28 Plays Later', which meant writing a play every day. It seemed a near-impossible task to begin with, but I hoped it would get my creative juices flowing, improve the fluence of my script-writing and allow me to experiment with...

Iron Age Writers

Added on 18 February 2017

No, this is not about quills and oak gall ink (although there may need to be a future blog post about that) but type-on-tree-pulp writing about the Iron Age. In this post I want to share and recommend two of my favourite writers about the Iron Age, one non-fiction and one fiction. The first is Barry...

Seaweed

Added on 11 February 2017

We are having utterly glorious blue, frozen weather, and if the boat was in the water, we'd be out there in the light breezes, cold no doubt but dazzled. But Each Mara is on the hard standing, so all we can do is paddle at the shore and gaze out at the turquoise, rippling ocean... and gather sea...