Sunshine streams in through the huge windows of Perth Concert Hall where Clare Hunter and I meet to talk about her book, Threads of Life, a History of the World through the Eye of a Needle. Recently published, this is a history of the social impact and political meaning of textiles. Armed with coffee and Read More
Tourists visit St Andrews for three main reasons; it’s the home of golf, the grounds of the renowned University where Prince Harry met Kate, and the StAnza international poetry festival in March, which bring poetry paramours to St Andrews’ historical streets. I reviewed Mary Jean Chan’s debut pamphlet, a hurry of english, some time ago Read More
Have you ever made a decision, and then in the middle of the night sat up in a hot sweat as you realise you might have made a terrible mistake, and it’s too late to take it back? Let me explain my moment of madness. Moira Forsyth is an author of five novels and currently Read More
It is a bright day in Glasgow on the day I go to interview Bernard MacLaverty. I mount the steps to his home in the West End of the city; one of the storm doors is open which feels akin to a welcome and several umbrellas are propped in the corner at the front door. Read More
“I must be hardest person you’ve ever had to track down,” says Dr Femi Folorunso as he leads me to a private booth. “Yes,” I reply, meaning it. A self-described “anti-social” man with work spanning from the Dundee Rep Theatre to Magnetic North in Edinburgh to the Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock, Folorunso is a Read More
From Lapland to Dundee (via London and Edinburgh), Hania Allen is well-travelled – in terms of writing at least. Her first novel, The Ice Hotel (2005), takes place in an ice hotel in Swedish Lapland; her subsequent books starring the detective Veronica ‘Von’ Valenti are set in London and Edinburgh and Hania’s current series, featuring Read More
We step out of Tonic into the stream of pedestrians on Nethergate looking for just the right place to talk. By tacit agreement, we pass up Dundee Contemporary Arts and look in on the Phoenix; but Duncan McLean tows me along. I’m conscious we are drifting too far away from the engagement McLean needs to Read More
We meet in a restaurant situated at the water’s edge of the Cromarty Firth, just outside the Ross-shire town of Evanton where Cynthia Rogerson lives. It is early in the day because she will be on ‘grandkid duty’ later. She is the prize-winning author of five novels and a collection of short stories and it Read More
