Warm Glow from Winter Words

Added on 04 February 2017

This week I received a new-to-me poetry magazine, The Poets’ Republic, through the post and I’ve been hugely enjoying reading it with my cup of tea in bed these last few mornings. I received it because the guest editor, Helena Nelson of Happenstance, suggested I should submit poems to it...

Trees fall, life goes on

Added on 28 January 2017

A year ago, my mother died a few days before her birthday, so this has been a difficult week of memories of the saddest time of my life. I had an interview, unavoidably, on her birthday, which was difficult and, perhaps not surprisingly. unsuccessful. I wasn't at my best. Yet sometimes such diff...

Teaching at the University of the Highlands and Islands

Added on 28 January 2017

I am delighted to have been hired by the University of the Highlands and Islands to lecture the 'Exploring Creative Writing' module for their MLitt course. I'll be leading weekly video conferences for twelve weeks from February 2017 and I'm hugely looking forward to it.

Slavery

Added on 15 January 2017

When Pytheas travelled around Britain in the Iron Age, he probably hitched along on trading vessels, which would have been carrying slaves as well as metals, jewelry and other valuable commodities. No doubt his views about slavery, as a citizen of a Greek colony, would have been radically different ...

Is rape a cultural construct?

Added on 06 January 2017

One reason I find novel writing so compelling is because I have to get myself inside people with different world views. All my novels have people from different cultures bumping into each other. The dramatic action is fuelled by the resulting misunderstanding or discord. In The Last Bear the three ...

'Craic' is a winner

Added on 28 December 2016

I'm delighted that one of my poems, 'Craic', has been commended by Jo Bell in the Buzzwords Poetry Competition. To celebrate, in my final poetry podcast of the year (I'm doing a podcast each month, if I can), I read it along with a few other poems that have done well in competitions ...