The way we are forced to work around the pandemic unfortunately applies to the launching of poetry publications also; as Rachel Long’s My Darling from the Lions was published at the start of August, chances for public appearances, speaking and promoting her work are all but whipped away. The publication must speak for itself. Long Read More
‘Antlers of Water’—the phrase is MacCaig’s—and for several reasons it’s an apt title for this new anthology of ‘Writing on the Nature and Environment of Scotland’. That craggy map. A land that is as much water, as land. Those antlers, perfectly seen by the poet, delve deeply into what it is to live in Scotland. Read More
Theophilus Kwek is a prolific writer with five collections to his credit. His latest, Moving House, articulates a preoccupation with the themes of migration, belonging, colonial history, and the turbulent politics of the present. Kwek is uniquely qualified to tackle these themes. He grew up in Singapore, graduated with a degree in history and politics, and Read More
The essay’s star is in the ascendant. While there has been a long—even noble—tradition of essay writing going all the way back to Montaigne’s Essais, many people associate essays with classroom forms of assessment. Yet, of late, more writers have felt emboldened to call their prose ‘essays’. Make it Scream, Make it Burn is a Read More
A bitter wind howls in from the east blowing the rain horizontal. I could easily be on the Yorkshire moors of Wuthering Heights, and this would be a fitting backdrop for an interview with gothic novelist, Sandra Ireland. We meet in Carnoustie’s Costa Coffee to chat about her most recent novel The Unmaking of Ellie Read More
Critically acclaimed as ‘the queen of Scottish folklore-inspired domestic noir’, Sandra Ireland’s oeuvre boasts three successful thrillers that all open with haunting epitaphs and disturbing prologues. However, Ireland’s new novel, Sight Unseen, is lighter. Narrated in alternating chapters, Sarah Sutherland in first person and her elderly father, John, in third person, we are immersed in Read More
Like elderly actresses, performing until they drop, one boasts an errant streak […] (‘These roses you gave me’) Perhaps it’s unsurprising that these lines come from a poem with the central metaphor of flowers. Vicki Feaver, more than almost anyone, has seized that subject, daring to write it – as a woman – not in Read More
Rebecca Watts’ second poetry collection Red Gloves is a gathering of objects and their willingness to remain or disappear, along with our willingness, as humans, to stay or to leave; it is an embodiment of a decline transpiring right under our noses. The author uses a hobnob of narrative and lyrical techniques, creating arcane, uninterrupted Read More
The Aberdeen Artists Society’s (AAS) exhibition, Coming Home, was due to take place in June in the newly refurbished Aberdeen Art Gallery to celebrate the society’s return to the gallery for the first time since 2014. The AAS, one of the longest established artist-led organisations in Scotland was formed in 1827 and began holding annual Read More
Errant is a fascinating collection that delves into the poet’s past experiences, with influences from other writings and encounters with other creative minds. Gabriel Levin’s sixth collection doesn’t fail to uncover, intrigue and take the reader through a myriad of places journeying between the poet’s homelands in the West and the Middle East. Levin who Read More