If you missed my story on BBC Radio 4 this Friday/Saturday, you still have 28 days left to listen here. It's in the series 'The Poet and the Echo' in which writers are commissioned to respond to a classic poem - a wonderful challenge for a prose writer. I chose Tennyson's 'Crossing the Bar' and set it close to the treacherous Bideford Bar, home to my seafaring ancestors. 

Writing:

With the liquidation of Freight Books at the end of last year, my last two books (Doubling Back and Call of The Undertow) are difficult to get hold of. Please check with me directly for advice on this or buy directly from my website.

Last year I wrote an essay for BBC Radio 3 exploring the qualities and history of quartz. This work is being collected in a publication from Little Toller books along with other essays in the BBC's 'Cornerstones' series, including writers Alan Garner and Helen Mort. Details of the book are here.

Two pieces of my writing have been published online this year by the Walkhighlands magazine. The first concerns a trip to Orkney in early January amidst short but intensely luminous days, and the second a rather unusual newspaper delivery made by myself and a friend to Uags bothy on the beautiful Applecross peninsula during a rather wintry spring equinox.

Workshops:

Places are still available on my fiction writing workshop at Garsdale Retreat in the Yorkshire Dales from the 9-14th July, and after the third successful Moroccan Desert workshop in February this year, I'm already planning one for next February. Please contact me for details or advice or just to express interest.

Upcoming events:

I'm reading from my work at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh’s nature writing Festival ‘Connect with Nature’ over the weekend 19th/20th of May to coincide with the exhibition of 'Lost Words', the much-loved work by Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane. Participating authors and illustrators include Mark Cocker and Jackie Morris.

My radio play, ‘The Lamp’ originally for BBC Radio 4, about Scotland's historic library at Innerpeffray in Perthshire gets an on-site script in hand performance as part of the conference of the Independent Libraries Association Conference. The play explores connections between the founding of Scotland’s first public lending library and libraries in Africa today. Saturday 2nd June at 3.30pm—Innerpeffray Schoolroom, Tickets £5. All welcome.

On Saturday 16th of June, I’ll be contributing some reflections on walking and landscape literature to a day at the Birks Cinema in Aberfeldy which will explore women's connection to the land past, present and future, including history, healing, food, medicine, occupations, education, bothies, and land ownership. Speakers include Lesley Riddoch. Book here soon!

I'm delivering a short paper on a creative/archaeological experiment I did on the island of North Uist to The Creative Archipelagoes conference on the Isle of Skye 29th June – 1st July.