'Lunar Cycling' published in Antlers of Water

In early 2019 Kathleen Jamie invited me to contribute an essay to a new nature writing anthology she was editing. She and the publisher Canongate had decided such an anthology was timely as, although Scottish crime writing is established as a phenomenon, the indigenous nature-and-environment writing movement is yet to be properly acknowledged. So here is the book that fills the gap, with the title Antlers of Water drawn from a Norman MacCaig poem. I'm very proud that my piece Lunar Cycling appears alongside an impressive roll-call of other writers from Scotland:   
   
‘The first ever collection of contemporary Scottish writing on nature and landscape, Antlers of Water showcases the diversity and radicalism of new Scottish nature writing today.’ Read more about the book here.

The invitation gave me the opportunity to draw on my month’s activity walking the intertidal zone of Rosneath peninsula when I was at Cove Park Artists Residency in summer 2017. Having decided to live with greater tidal awareness whilst surrounded by the sea, I observed on my low tide walk each day shells, pebbles, ceramics reshaped by the sea, tampon applicators, a single mangetout, a railway ticket, a doll’s head, Victorian boots, and so on. Noting how human artefacts were often strangely transformed by their sea-journeys, I gradually collected quite a museum of objects.

My essay focuses on the object pictured, a plastic bicycle pedal which had run away to sea. I had never before thought to explore the fascinating life cycle of the barnacles which have colonised it and what they could teach me about living with the rhythm of tides.

Antlers of Water is published today, 6th August and available from your favourite indie bookshop, or from Waterstones at £20.