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 ...

Maritime

Added on 08 November 2016

For the past few weeks we have been on the boat most of the time, making the most of the back end of the sailing season. We grabbed the nice easterly wind and glorious autumn weather of October and sailed across the Minch, and based the boat on the pontoons in Stornoway Harbour. This wasn’t ju...

New woodland charity offer

Added on 01 November 2016

From now until the end of the year, for any copies of my poetry pamphlet A-B-Tree bought from this website I will give a donation to a woodland charity of your choice: either Culag Community Woods, or Reforesting Scotland, or your favourite woodland charity if you can persuade me it's a better c...

Birds

Added on 28 October 2016

The fieldfares have blown in at last! Flurries of leaves are being scattered from the birches and aspens and the loose, lively flocking of the fieldfares is similar in form, fluttering above the woods in gusts and bursts. I’ve been longing for them for weeks, watching the rowan berries startin...

A-B-Tree was launched into the world from Culag woods

Added on 06 October 2016

The day before National Poetry Day, Wednesday 5 October, saw a small group of people disappearing off into Culag Woods from Lochinver harbour, to scatter poems like leaves among the trees. We brewed up kelly kettles for tea, cooked marshmallows and read poems in the dappled, smoky sunlight. Trees wh...