Embroidering Her Truth: Mary, Queen of Scots and the Language of Power

Banner-maker, community artist and textile curator, Clare Hunter won the Saltire First Book Award for her debut work, Threads of Life (2019), which became Waterstone’s Scottish Book of the Month and a Radio 4 Book of the Week. Embroidering Her Truth continues this historical thread, weaving readers through episodes in Mary Stuart’s life, with an intricate examination of embroideries, tapestries, and textiles, and the subliminal messages these held.

WORDS AND STITCHES: A CONVERSATION WITH CLARE HUNTER

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

Threads of Life

Do you ever read the last page of a book first? I don’t know why I did with this book, because I wouldn’t usually. Yet I am so glad I did. I know nothing about needlework but this is how the final paragraph begins, ‘Sewing is a way to mark our existence on cloth: patterning Read More

The Touch of Time: New & Selected Poems

The Touch of Time, Stewart Conn’s recently published collection, serves as a retrospective of a lifetime spent writing, concluding with a section of new poems. Ayrshire-born Conn is one of Scotland’s quiet poets who has created a steady body of work over the last 40 years, making him one of the most established and appreciated Read More