Time, which is itself encased in stunning script: Baikal poured into a single shell or glass receptacle. Belfast folk aver there was nothing wrong with the Titanic when she left their slipway. As that city’s inaugural laureate Sinéad Morrissey arrives in Newcastle, her most recent collection On Balance opens by contemplating the fated liner’s Read More
Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney’s pre-eminence as a poet is too well known to need any elucidation of course, but perhaps it is worth noting here that his prowess as a translator was also already evident in his Beowulf. Heaney undertook his verse translation of the sixth book of Virgil’s Aeneid to honour the memory of Read More
Martin Cathcart Froden’s debut historical crime novel “The Devil take the Hindmost” won the 2015 Dundee International Book Prize of five thousand pounds and publication with Freight Books. Set in the velodromes of London and the Midlands in the late nineteen twenties, it follows the adventures of a young highlander. Paul arrives at Kings Cross Read More
I’m about to interview James Kelman, inarguably one of the most important writers working in Britain today. As I climb the stairs of the University of Dundee’s Tower Building, I’m feeling terribly anxious. Over the course of his career, Kelman has garnered a bit of a reputation for giving quite thorny interviews and I’m Read More
Lus na Tùise is, by any standard, a beautiful book and it is, perhaps, fitting that this parallel Gaelic-English collection was published in Nova Scotia. Those who have set expectations of what Gaelic poetry may be, are already alerted that all is not as it seems; Marcas Mac an Tuairneir hails from Yorkshire and has Read More
Reading Amali Rodrigo’s Lotus Gatherers is like taking into your mouth sweetness, sharpness and bitterness all at once. Then she engages your other senses – smell, sound, texture, colour. After that you’re hooked because beyond the initial sensory pull, there are greater riches, deeper depths. Lotus Gatherers is Rodrigo’s first collection, though she has already Read More
Its hazy beauty strangely keeps it new, helps you forget the damage or the why. On sunny days, the mountain turns quite blue – this lumened place you dream of coming to. Hauntingly beautiful, Katherine Gallagher’s Acres of Light is steeped in lyricism. It is observant, evocative, and is above all, a celebration of Read More
Flocks of Words, Kate Innes’s debut poetry collection, draws deeply on her love of the medieval, the mythical and the imaginative, which she overlays with a profound connection with nature and the Shropshire hills in particular. Her music is the music of distant stars and of creation, sometimes almost Miltonian in its wonder and terror. Read More
(This is a lightly edited transcript of the interview; to view the whole interview, please click image above) Edward Small: Hello. I’m Eddie Small. I lecture in Creative Writing at the University of Dundee and we’re here today to do an interview with one of our past students on behalf of DURA, Dundee University Review of Read More