I first met Joan in 2015 when she was tutoring a course on writing young adult fiction at Moniack Mhor writing centre near Inverness. As a tutor, Joan was witty, good-humoured, inspiring and passionate about storytelling and writing. In her workshops we played with ideas, with “what ifs” and with real and invented words. Joan Read More
Hag-Seed : The Tempest Retold is part of the Hogarth series of re-workings of Shakespeare by “acclaimed and bestselling novelists of today” (p. 295), and of course there will be readers who cannot think why such a thing is necessary. But that is a nettle to be grasped another day. In Atwood’s story, actor-director Felix Read More
What strikes you immediately with Greetings from Grandpa is Jack Mapanje’s voice. The poems have a directness, as if the poet is speaking straight to the reader, plainly and conversationally. Poet and reader in the same room. Mapanje is a Malawian poet, linguist and human rights activist who was imprisoned from 1987 to 1991 by Read More
I practised deep inhaling, hoping, like you, to float. You travelled so light, your shoes never lined up for cleaning on Saturday nights. I imagined a flutter of postcards, you summoning me. The thick thunk of junk mail daily hit the floor, deposited by the wheezing postie. I named a constellation after you. It’s still Read More
It’s sad when a word is poisoned by history. The word I’m thinking of is “collaboration.” Is it possible to wash off the wartime smear of sleaze and shame that this perfectly good word has acquired? What it describes really is something to be proud of, requiring both a clear personal voice and a generosity Read More
