Scottish Book Tour 2025

Every summer when I go to Scotland to work, I order an obscene amount of books from a small independent bookseller in the Scottish Borders. I try to catch up on recent Scottish book publications, but also pick a few that I've heard about over the winter. I try to focus on Scottish authors and publishes, but this year I branched out a little. Thanks you Mainstreet Books for feeding my addiction. 

I usually try to review some of the books I've bought and read, though this year I seem to be reading quite slowly so it's already 2026 and I'm just touching the bottom of the pile. So yes, this is another 2025 book round up.

Kirsten MacQuarrie's book Remember the Rowan published by Red Squirrel Press was unexpected. I'd heard of the book Ring of Bright Water, but knew nothing about its author Gavin Maxwell and I knew of the poet Kathleen Raine and had read a few poems, but her life was not something I had heard about. The book charts their volatile relationship. Raine was in love with Maxwell who was a homosexual. He became her muse for much of her poetry and she was involved with the Maxwell's first otter which was the focus of his most famous book. Remember the Rowan is a big read, well-researched and covering decades of their inspiration and arguments. I enjoyed it, it's very well written. 

The book is a real insight into the life of a woman who plays a midwife to an artist, not a muse, similar to Sylvia Beach and James Joyce, a woman who makes it possible for a man to succeed, even to the detriment of her own work and well-being. For that reason, I couldn't feel good about the story. I felt caught up in Raine's life and turmoil, so much so I wanted to take her for a drink to tell her to get out of the toxic relationship. It shows how intimate and believable a writer MacQuarrie is. 

James by Percival Everett was a book I wanted to enjoy, but I just didn't and I can't put my finger on why. It follows the character of Jim from Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We follow Jim as his escapes from slavery and goes on the run, meeting Huck. The two books overlap and Everett manages it well, creating a strong character and backstory for him, but I just didn't gel with James or his story. The story sometimes pushes at the reader to shout its message and the ending felt rushed, so I walked away feeling unsatisfied.

On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle, on the other hand, blew my socks off. If I was one of those readers who underlines my favourite lines or sections, the book would be covered with ink. Though not an original idea, a character that is stuck in a loop to repeat one day over and over, it handles it in a totally unexpected way. It is a quiet study, a character who unravels herself over and over within this day and within her relationship with her husband. The language is poetic and soft, a slow dive into the character's mind, and I was hooked from the very beginning. There are currently six books in the series, four of which have been translated into English, the first shortlisted for the Booker last year. Our next trip to Scotland will include a visit to pick up the available volumes. Absolutely breathtaking. 

The Details by Ia Genberg was another Booker Prize shortlisted books by a Scandinavian female author I read last year. A stream of consciousness, a fevered telling, it unravels the character's relationships with various friends and loves over the decades. While the book is well-crafted, I just couldn't find a way into the character. We follow her through her life in intimate detail, yet I felt distanced from her. Sometimes knowing a character's every thought is too much.

Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen was a book I considered buying in the summer, but decided to postpone as it was too big and I already had too many. I was given it later unexpectedly and dived in. Set on an isolated lighthouse far north of mainland Scotland, it tells the story of an artist who comes to stay and gets caught up in the life of the lighthouse keeper and his son. The book rollicks and rambles over the sea and island, delighting in its nature and unpredictability. The characters deal with their own storms, young Ouse on the brink of adulthood and all the choices it offers and The Father, the lighthouse keeper, who watches all he has built start to be pulled away by the outsider Firth, an Edinburgh artist who arrives with plenty of baggage. The language is unpredictable and delightful, full of humour and bright poetry and the characters are well-crafted and engaging. The use of Scots is unobtrusive but essential to the atmosphere, bringing all the details together. A fun and engaging read.

Poyums Annaw by Len Pennie is the second poetry collection by the Scots Word of the Day internet sensation. I first stumbled upon her during our Covid lockdown where she shared a new Scots word with a hint of humour and honesty. I love her poem 'I'm not having children' and her poem about the Daft Days, but I hadn't read her first collection or her other works. Len Pennie is now an Scots language advocate, but she also has become a voice for survivors of gender-based violence after facing a lengthy court case of her own and constantly facing internet trolls on her various social media platforms. Her poems cover her own situation and fighting the patriarchy in general, mostly in Scots.  They are honest and acerbic, sometimes tinged with humour. They do not bury the punchline in metaphor, instead they often pack a mean punch. While the rhyming sometimes gets to me, I'm a free verse kind-of-gal, the poems carry the reader along without feeling they are reading literature with a capital L. They are the kind of thing you'd share with your non-poetry pals and the two poems above have been passed on to me from unexpected places. Len often shares recordings of her poetry on social media and her genuine joy of Scots and poetry are infectious. Her poems are really meant to be heard, so if you can get the audio book read by Len herself, I'm sure it's worth hearing them in the author's own voice. 

The Ghost Lake by Wendy Pratt is another memoir-type book written by someone I vaguely know. Wendy Pratt is a poet who runs workshops, offers mentoring and ran the magazine Spelt. I won a mentoring session with her a decade ago and she was a great second set of eyes on my writing. Since then she's had several collections published and now has written a memoir about her journey through grief based around a paleo-lake where she has lived her whole life, a lake that has long disappeared, but left it's mark on the landscape and her life. The history and archaeology within the book are really captivating and are used to peel back the layers of stories. Her journey to find her way in her writing career, through the grief of infertility and the loss of her daughter during her birth and her father's recent death is interwoven with the landscape and the people who have lived there. 

It's not the kind of book I would normally read as it feels a bit like voyeurism, but here the reader is being invited closer to actually walk amongst the story, picking up a shell or stone with the author to connect. Wendy has always been very open about her struggles, on her blog and in her writing. The book touches on a lot of topics close to her heart: rural life, working class struggles, neurodiversity and grief. It shares the overwhelming weight she carries and the chinks of light she has followed to stand above it all, if only for moments. It's a touching tribute to the area and the people who have helped her on her way. 

Fower Pessoas by Colin Bramwell is a book I've just started but already I want to scribble down so many lines. It is a Scots 'translation' of Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet known for his heteronyms, alternative personalities that he took on to write his poems. There are so many layers upon layers within this book, Bramwell to Pessoa to his heteronyms, Scots to English to Portuguese, that I imagined it would be a difficult read. However, the poems have a friendly feel like sitting with a slightly drunk Glaswegian poet hearing their thoughts about the world. There's philosophy swirled with humour and sarcasm, insight below the mocking. I'm really enjoying it, so far. 

Though he doesn't say it in his acknowledgments, I think this is a version of subversive translations as in the poetry collection I reviewed by Taylor Strickland. Bramwell admits he doesn't speak Portuguese well and these poems are moved in time and place to modern Glasgow, the heteronyms taking on a Scots personality and language. They are responses to Pessoa and our own restless times and to Scotland's own identity, all wrapped up in its own antisyzygy. I read some Pessoa after I came back from Lisbon a few years ago, I'll have to dig them out again and remind myself of their own voices, but I'm already enjoying the use of Scots, the sense of movement and freedom of the poems. There a sense that there's no pinning them down. 

Finally a publication note for myself, first of 2026, my poetry has been included in Helsinki Writers Group's 2025 anthology. Go here to check it out. 

So goodbye 2025 and welcome 2026. I have no plans or resolutions, just keeping my eyes open to see what the year holds for me. Best of luck to us all. 

Scottish Book Tour: Scotland Ten Years On

My attempt at Substack didn't work, so I'll stick to notes there and my blog here. 

The sun's back. Two weeks ago I had solar panels installed and then Finland went into autumn mode with mists and overcast darkness. It's good to have this burst of sunlight to make the huge cost seem worthwhile. The cats and I have been recharging our batteries in pools of light, though the throw blanket has found it's way back to the couch. I'm not ready to turn the heat on yet. 

The trees are just starting to turn, hints of gold and red around the edges. We're about a month behind season-wise. I have pictures of the kids from past years, knee-deep in piles of leaves. Gold birch coins and mushrooms are just starting to sprinkle the lawn. 

My pictures also show the Scottish Independence Referendum from ten years ago, September 18. My social media is full of people remembering, many mourning the loss. It's still a blow, especially after Brexit and the recent mess in the Scottish Government. The possibility of independence seems further away than ever before. 

Speaking of Scottish, I'm still trying to work my way through the pile of books I bought this summer in Scotland. I picked up a few older books that I had never read, including Jackie Kay's Trumpet and some George Mackay Brown titles. 

I also tried John Burnside's Dumb House. I haven't been able to get through it. It reminds me a lot of The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks which I love. Burnside was a poet, novelist and editor who recently died and I had never read any of his work. But I couldn't get into this book, the main character is messed up. The book starts with him just saying that he's fed a set of twins poison, similar to Banks' character Frank announcing he'd killed three people so far in the opening scene. I couldn't find anything redeemable in the main character, even though the book tries to show the loss that led to his horrible actions. I may go back to it as it's impelling to find out about the twins, but I just can build up any sympathy for the main character. 

Trumpet, however, really builds empathy for the characters, Millie and Colman, the wife and son of a famous trumpeter Joss Moody who has just died. Joss's secret is out and his family are left to deal with the aftermath of the explosion left between them, Millie by hiding herself away and Colman by exploring his father's past with a journalist. Here the backstory doesn't truly explain Joss' choices but lays a foundation for the person he becomes. The writing is beautiful and quite raw with emotion, beautifully done.

And beautiful isn't quite the right adjective for George Mackay Brown's seminal novel Greenvoe. Wrapped in myth, landscape, history and humour, Greenvoe is a village full of character and characters set on an imaginary Orcadian island. Their secrets are all laid bare and knit into the village's spirit, Alice has seven children all named after the men she had affairs with, guileless Timmy buys his meths for his Tilley lamp, but everyone knows he drinks it himself and the school teacher impotently lusts after the ferryman who has his eye set on a bigger prize. Mackay Brown builds up a close-knit community that doesn't always have each others' best interests at heart. When modern incursions of an secret industry called Dark Star threaten the island, the villagers have little choice, but to accept their own natures. The writing is poetic, woven with sea and island culture. This is no surprise as Mackay Brown is also a brilliant poet. An absolute gem and I'm looking forward to my next book by Mackay Brown. 

It's been over ten years since I left Scotland and almost twenty since I completed my Masters in Scottish Literature and there's still so much to explore in its literature. 

No real news in my own writing. Moving forward slowly. 

If anyone is interested in Scots language, the Dictionary of the Scots Language has their own version of Wordle - https://www.macwordle.co.uk/ which is quite fun. 

Writing A Life

After a week of heat, autumn rain has hit my little corner of Finland this morning, so I'm soaking up tea and writing since I couldn't manage to sleep in. Back to school blues. I'm happy to be back to work, love meeting the kids again, but miss the slow starts to the day and the empty calendar. 

This last weekend I downloaded all my posts on this blog to a Word file. Yes, I was procrastinating writing poetry, we won't go into that. 

It got me thinking about how much I write about my life and my swirling thoughts. I keep a journal, not every day, but regularly. I write in this blog, I've kept various blogs over the years. I've been in online forums where I've posted regularly in a daily update thread. I've even come across a gardening journal I kept for a few years of what I planted, what the weather was like. I obviously have an obsession to chronicle my life. 

Over the years I have downloaded all this online journalling and have so many files. I could stitch them together to get an interesting view of the past twenty years of my life, from a writing point of view, as a mother (from parenting boards) and just about life in general. It would be reams and reams of words though, this blog alone takes over two hundred A4 pages. 

Twenty years of blogs, 40 years of journals and over 30 years of poems. Which all basically add up to my life story. I can't imagine what I could do with it.

A friend recently wrote a memoir, a non-fiction meditation on her life. I say recently, but she obviously spent years writing it. I'll review it below. I can't imagine writing a memoir. I wouldn't know what angle to take or what theme to spin around. I have done lots of things, lived in some interesting places, lived through 50 years of events, I even taught a writing your life course for a couple of years and I'm no stranger to exposing my life through my poems, but I wouldn't know where to begin. What makes our lives interesting to others? What obsession can we share?

Or have I already begun? I'm tempted to start bringing together the different pieces year by year, to see what I was doing and where I was mentally. It would be a huge job, a distraction. 

In my early journals, I didn't write about what was going on in the world. I was a teenager and was more focussed on what was going on in my own little bubble. I doubt that would have much of a wider appeal. Things get more interesting as I get older and better at writing, go to university, to Scotland, become an adult, enter a relationship and have children. Though I occasionally look over the parapet, I still focus on my own internal world, worries and dramas. And none of it is too dramatic, maybe not enough to write a memoir. 

So I'll probably just keep writing, an archive of my life to leave behind. I'm sure it'll give my kids a laugh. Maybe it'll end up in a museum of Generation X - following my journey from eight tracks to X.com and beyond. 

A quick review of Storm Pegs by Jen Hadfield as I've just finished it. I've mentioned here before that I'm not good with non-fiction. I try to read it but always leave the text unsatisfied. That sense of trying to make meaning of the randomness of our life, to wrap things together, not with a neat bow, but into a useful bundle of sticks often feels forced to me which is probably why I couldn't write one. 

Storm Pegs follows the poet's life in Shetland as she tries to discover 'where am I?' As to be imagined, it's full of poetic wonderings at the Shetland landscape and sea, travels to different corners and islands, learning about the language, the culture and people. It's lush with details and unravellings. 

Jen Hadfield fights against the idea that Shetland is isolated or remote and draws beautiful connections between the community, her neighbours and the creative scene in Shetland. But there is a sense that she's quite comfortable in being hunkered down in her caravan, strapped down against the elements and prefers that edge-of-the-world feeling, that the sparse spaces and distance are something she craves. 

She doesn't try to show us how we should live, where to take your next holiday or how to find the poetic in your daily lives. This is the smallest glimpse of what her Shetland life is, make your own conclusions. 

Jen is an amazing poet, with an eye for the small awkward details of the world, so I knew the writing would be exquisite. From her poetry, I knew she would draw me into the Shetland culture and wade through its language, scooping up glimmering fragments as she does glowing algae. I wasn't disappointed. 

She also gives us a hint of the day-to-day, making a life where she has no history, where she can write her own story as Poet as a neighbour calls her. It's not always simple, of course, but she finds patterns of beauty in even cutting open worms when she needs a non-poetic job to pay the bills. It was lovely to wrap myself in her world for a short time and it left me wanting more. Maybe Jen should start a blog, lol. I wish her the best of luck in the next stage of her adventure. 

Enjoy your weekend. 

Subversive Translations - More than Just the Gist

It's the longest day tomorrow. Juhannus in Finland, when the Finns douse themselves in summer; light bonfires, go to sauna, jump in lakes and leave the city. It'll be a quiet day for us. Everything's closed, we don't have a summer cottage to retreat to. It's one of those weird holidays where if you didn't grow up with it and have the associated traditions connected, you wander around feeling out of sorts. It's important, but you can't place why. It always leaves me feeling a little out of sync. 

A new poetry delivery this week, Dastram/ Delirium by Taylor Strickland. Published by Broken Sleep Books, I chose this collection because it is 'versions' of translations of Scottish Gaelic poetry. I've half-heartedly studied Gaelic since I first lived in Scotland in 1991 and have an interest in its poetry, but not the skill to read it. I'd heard of the poet the collection is based on, Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, but had never read his work. The first person to publish a Scottish Gaelic book, the first Gaelic-English dictionary, he is also considered one of the foremost Gaelic poets and his life was connected to many of the most important Scottish events during his lifetime. 

But beyond the historical interest, I was intrigued by Strickland's translations because this collection won a Poetry Society Translation Choice Award while he says he doesn't speak much Gaelic. The answer to the questions raised by that last sentence is Subversive Translation. According to Strickland via the poet/translator Rody Gorman, subversive translation is 'less a technical methodology and more an accountability act that represents the text through translations, but which accepts the failure in worthwhile translation as sufficient in its own right'. 

I don't claim to totally understand the concept, but my gut is saying these translations owe more to the author's interpretation of the text rather than the exact translation of the words. This appeals to me as this is how I exist in Finnish at the moment. I have enough of the language to understand the gist, mood or theme of a text or a conversation, but I cannot directly translate or understand the nuance and details. If I read a poem in Finnish I can get something, but it's heavily weighted towards my surface understanding of the words rather than a deep dive into the language, the place and the time it's coming from. I also hang my own sense of self, place and time over the poem. 

And this I feel is what Strickland is doing. The first section of poems, praise poems to a lover Morag, are already erotic in the original Gaelic, especially considering they were written by a minister's son (the translation of his name) in the 1700s. The subverted translations in this collection bring a modern sense to the poems, stylistically and thematically. They are loose, savouring the modern freedom of playing with the language in English and with social mores. There's no pulling punches here, but there is a beautiful sense of forbidden and furtive love throughout this selection,

I left you and you left
a burr of whispers in my head, 
a beehive of sex and nectar,

blocked up my nose
as I inhale lenten rose,

                    ('Crùnluath') 

As I can't read the Gaelic well enough to know what's been changed, how the music is different from the rhythms of the original Gaelic, how the poet has adapted them to English, I can only get caught up in his versions. They are like hearing one side of the conversation with the original poems. A chance to embrace being out of sync. They acknowledge their traditional roots, but subverting 'worthwhile' translations opens them up to new generations of poetry readers, those who speak Gaelic and those who don't. They made me want to explore more about the original poet and his poems which is always a sign of a good book for me.

Happy midsummer to you. 

Slowing Down into the Summer, Summer, Summertime

School is finally done and the sun is shining. The weather has been amazing, so hot and clear. Not great for the garden or the forests to go so long without rain, but the long days of light and heat are a relief. Beach weather, park weather, proper summer weather while we off to enjoy it. 

Appointments are winding down and most alarms are turned off. I'm trying to make the most of each day, doing a mix of things I want, things that need to be done and things I should do. So a little housework and repair, big cleaning, gardening and, of course, writing. I have a huge puzzle to finish from Christmas, a cardigan I started years ago, my genealogy research is never-ending. 

I had two weeks after school finished to do what I wanted, but now I have a visitor here and then summer school in Scotland to teach English for ten days. After that's done, I'll be able to focus on having a more relaxed summer. I'm not writing much while my guest is here, but I still get a few minutes here and there. 

I'm enjoying what I'm writing now. My style has changed a bit over the past year. My poetic style is always changing, but I sometimes get caught in a loop of subjects or styles, writing very similar poems for a period and when something comes along to shake me up, I find it refreshing. 

I use prompts to push me out of my rut. Writing from different points of view, occasionally trying a structured form (I'm currently trying to write a palindrome) and looking into unusual events for inspiration. I've even managed to put a bit of humour, sometimes black humour in my poems, playing with ideas that often aren't found together. 

I hope while I'm on my course I'll have time in the evenings to write and continue with this new mood. 

A wee book review of a new Scottish title: I recently read Angus Peter Campbell's Electricity. I'd heard a lot about it and had hoped to be blown away by it. But it's not that kind of book, it doesn't make you want to steam through it, to see how it ends. It's a slow read, a wander through a world that barely exists now and you don't want to rush through it. It sneaks up on you. 

It's a reminiscence of a grandmother, writing to her Australian grandchild about her Hebridean upbringing on an unnamed Scottish island. The people still speak Gaelic and cling to traditional ways in the wake of electricity and an airport coming to the island. 

It's not a novel, in a traditional sense. There are beautifully drawn characters, the speaker Annie, her family, a local shepherd who resists all change, her friends and neighbours. There's not much of a plot other than change is coming to the island. Annie writes what starts out as a letter, but it soon meanders beyond that, skipping through time and theme to draw a warm, comforting picture of a community steeped in traditions and memories. 

I don't believe the book is set on any particular island but seems to connect closest to North and South Uist and Benbecula with its tiny airport. It looks at subjects important to the history of the Hebrides; migration, language, the culture of ceilidhs and farming. Annie's parents and some of her neighbours cling to the traditions of paraffin lamps and peat fires as electricity tempts others with the simplicity of electric fires, refrigeration and lights. But we know how the story ends and from the beginning, there is a sense of loss that too much of this way of life has been lost. 

Campbell's Electricity does a beautiful job of capturing island life and Gaelic culture. It is a reminder to slow down and take note of what is going on around you, right now. 

Enjoy your summer. 

Back to Busy Catch-up

It was the first full week back to school for the students. My 6th graders learning the ropes for middle school has been a bit hectic. I still don't have a schedule, as a teaching assistant, so I'm left to my own devices mostly to decide where I should be. I'll hopefully get my schedule this week. 

The weather has been crazy hot this week, like much of Europe. Finland's not used to reaching 30C in August. Thunderstorms are promised for today, but it's still clear blue out there. Need to go water my allotment. 

I recorded three poems with Helsinki Open Waves recently as part of a project with Helsinki Writers Group.  This weekend I have been going through my takes, choosing how to put the poems together. I'm getting used to hearing myself read my work, but I'm not sure if I'm very good at it yet. I usually only need three takes to get a decent read-through, though we're lucky that the audio technician is happy to cut and paste bits together so I don't need a perfect take. What I'm still learning is how to emphasise the poem and read it with some expression that suits the words. It's strange to hear something that you put so much energy into that by the end your body was a tense mess and to realise it didn't come across the airwaves like it sounded in your head. Hopefully, he'll be able to make it sound better with a bit of tinkering. HOW still has an open call for recording slots for anyone in the Helsinki area. They've been brilliant to work with and so patient with our problems with getting 4 people times to record and a case of Covid. 

Book review: I'm still reading through my Scottish books and I picked up another Darkland Tales book, this time Rizzio by Denise Mina. I knew a bit about the story behind Mary Queen of Scotland and David Rizzio's death from a teenage obsession, but this fleshed out the tale in every way. While I didn't enjoy it as much as Hex, the previous Darkland Tale I read, I really enjoyed seeing this piece of history brought to life, hearing the layers behind the conspiracy. I look forward to the next Darkland Tale and will keep an eye out for more titles by Denise Mina. 

Still waiting for my copy of The Storms journal to cross the Baltic, but I've seen posts on Twitter that it's making its way to contributors. Can't wait to have a look. 

The Sealey Challenge isn't happening. I'm just too tired after school and dealing with my own kids. I have a pile of poetry books to get through, so will try after I finish the book I'm currently reading. 

Enjoy the late summer heat. It won't last. 

Scottish Book Tour Part 3

Last day of summer break before I go back to work, a week before my class comes back. It's been a strange summer, back to travelling, a bit of relaxing, a bit of personal stress. The kids are old enough to entertain among themselves, but not good at going out to find their friends due to Covid, so I think they'll be excited to go back to school.

Getting to go back to Scotland twice was amazing. Once on my own to Lewis and Harris with lots of writing and relaxing, once with some of the kids to Glasgow to see friends and family. Both were pretty perfect. After my big book haul in Ullapool, we also hit the bookshops in Glasgow. My younger son has gotten into manga, so Forbidden Planet became his Mecca and after he struggled for so long to get into reading with dyslexia, I was happy to oblige him. Luckily the airline didn't weigh our carryons as I think between the two of us they were a bit heavy with books.

With the travelling, I just managed to finish Ponies at the Edge of the World by Catherine Munro this week. I have to admit I'm not a real non-fiction reader, I struggle with being told what connections to make when reading, but I was a pony-crazy girl, so this seemed a natural draw to me, Scotland and ponies. 

The book's not really about Shetland ponies, though they are the hook that drew the author to Shetland as well as me to the book. Munro uses ponies and the relationship between man and animal in an environment to look at her own developing relationship with the Shetland Islands and how she found her own place within it. Filled with beautiful descriptions of the ponies and other native animals and landscapes, Munro draws us to the beauty of the islands. 

It's her descriptions of the local people I found more interesting. She doesn't shy from the Shetlandic language and shares some local traditions and customs, but she was also able to capture how the small population spread out over the islands manages to create a strong sense of community, between each other and the land. Her non-fiction asides on adaptation and connection to place which were part of the research that took her to Shetland were applied to the ponies and the people and herself, but didn't feel too heavy-handed. 

Ponies at the Edge of the World shares a unique view of the Shetland Islands and its people and animals, connected to each other and their landscape and how choosing to be a part of this place requires a sense of personal adaptation and acceptance. Worth a read. 

August is the Sealey Challenge month, to read a book of poetry a day for the entire month. It's already the second and with school starting for me tomorrow, I know it isn't going to happen. I did pick up some poetry books in Scotland, so my goal is to read them over this month. I post on Twitter first and then collect them here as I did last year. 

Scottish Book Tour Part 2

Merryn Glover's Of Stone and Sky.  

As I read this novel, I found myself asking how can one book encapsulate so much of the Scottish rural experience? It appears to be a multi-generational family drama, but from the beginning widens to include a village, a strath, a community and a whole way of life. 

The novel focuses on the Munros, a shepherding family, Gideon and Agnes, their sons Colvin and Sorley, adopted daughter Mo and Colvin's wife and children. The details of their farming life are lovely depicted, the harsh mingled with the beauty. But it is also a lament for the loss of this way of life in modern society. The sheep that once supported entire communities in Northern Scotland are now often relegated as tick mops for game animals. 

Situated in the Cairngorms, the novel also highlights Scotland's natural treasure with rich language. It also doesn't shy from the bleaker truths: the deforestation of Scotland, disputes between the needs of large estates in the Highlands and locals and the attempt to find a balance between how to use the land, for wildlife, forestry, agriculture and tourism.

Glover also brings in themes such as rewilding, community land buyouts, struggles between the classes, the question of foreigners buying up Scottish land and the loss of the native culture and language, including Gaelic as well as the Travellers. The novel is nicely balanced so that no voice is too strong, there are lairds that try to help the community; there are non-Scots that find a way to fit in and add their colour to the local scene, but the opposite is never white-washed away. 

In trying to write this review, I kept stumbling over the word community and that is what this book is about. The Munro family is central, but their story feels a bit too neat at times. While I grew to love the almost silent character of Colvin, the true main character is the community, the shepherds, the gamekeepers, and the families struggling to keep their homes and jobs. The novel is about the change in Scottish rural communities from before the world wars and the narrator Mo is the voice of that community who tells everyone's story, but in the end, can offer no answers. 

Merryn Glover's prose depicts the place, the people and the culture of various times so vividly, weaving a story that brings many disparate but vital threads of Scotland together, illustrating especially the Cairngorms. I learned a great deal reading this book about Scotland's history and its present troubles, wrapped up in a compelling story.  An amazing read. 

I'm off to Scotland again soon, so might have a few more books to add to the ones I'm still working my way through. 

2021 Writing Review

2022 isn't starting on the best foot. I'm in quarantine with my four kids, two have tested positive and we're just waiting to see if any of the rest of us get it. Some of us will already miss one day of school/work when we go back next week, so I'm hoping we can hold out and not miss any more. 

I've gotten lots of little home projects done but missed the chance to catch up on things like buying new clothes for my constantly growing kids, picking up a few replacement items for the home. We've cleaned, played Uno, sledged, listened to music, read lots and spent too much time on screens. But we haven't killed each other yet. Two years of social distancing has helped to prep us for proper quarantine, though I'm desperate to get back into the world.

But this post is to look back. 2021 was a good year for my writing. I've had more work accepted than ever before, some for magazines I've been trying to get into for ages or for projects that actually paid or offered wider exposure than previous I've been involved in. 

I'm not writing every day, but I have learned to focus the little time I have on writing. Saturday is currently my writing day, though that will happen less as my course starts up. I write, edit and submit to magazines on that day, totally immersing myself in writing. I will miss having that much time for just my writing, so I don't expect to see such great numbers next year.

I will still take Friday evening for my writing group and maybe do my writing work then. Hopefully, we will find a wee project or two to work on together. 

2021

61 new poems
144 submissions to journals or other opportunities
3 book submissions

108 rejections 

5 book rejections

38 acceptances 

68 poems were published in 39 publications
21 blog posts
Acceptance rate: 26%

Compared to 2020

55 new poems

131 submissions to magazines

3 to book publishers

106 magazine rejections

4 book rejections

29 acceptances

50 poems were published in 29 publications

33 blog posts

Acceptance rate: 21%

I'm very happy with those numbers and hope I can maintain I little of this momentum with my upcoming course. 

An added note of books I've read in 2021 that have really touched me. I have run out of time to do proper reviews, but I covered these poetry collections in my Sealey Challenge posts.

Jen Hadfield The Stone Age

Wendy Pratt When I Think of My Body as a Horse

Angela Carr How to Lose Your Home and Save Your Life

A few fiction titles I have enjoyed: 

Graeme Armstrong The Young Team - this book surprised me. It's about youth gangs around Glasgow in the 1990s. It's written totally in Scots which I enjoyed, but I also liked seeing into a group I was aware of when I lived in some of the less affluent areas of Glasgow, but had no understanding of. To see these boys as something other than a threat was inspiring. The writing was fast-paced and exciting, but also really well done to keep up the Scots in a way that was accessible but also really gave a sense of time and place.  

Margot MacCuaig Almost Then is an elegantly written book about twins who struggle to come to terms with their past and the path it has set them on. Margot sculpts her prose and characters with such attention to detail and feeling, that I can see every moment. Again, it has a strong use of Scots to create a connection to place. I did put some effort into finding more Scots to read this year and really enjoyed it.

Elizabeth Reeder An Archive of Happiness is a novel that brings a complicated family together in the North of Scotland, weaving different family members' resentments, memories and hopes until they come together in an agonising crescendo. I enjoyed the format of one day broken into segments so that I needed to stitch them together to follow the timeline. Beautifully crafted. 

My course starts today and I already have an assignment and bunch of worry. So I don't expect to do anything with this blog until the next holiday, which will hopefully run smoother. 

Take care. 

Sealey Challenge: Day 1

Summer is almost over here in Finland, after months of high temps and no rain, thunderstorms hit last night and it's been raining all day. Schools start back in a week, so we're on the wind-down. 

I'm torn about going back, I will miss the lazy days, but I would really like to talk to adults again. My stress insomnia has already started up, but hopefully that will pass once I go back for our orientation. 

I've decided to try the Sealey Challenge this month, to read a poetry collection a day for the month of August. I have to admit I'm not good at keeping up with my poetry reading. I buy collections and dip into them, but often struggle to sit down and read the whole book at once. 

I'm not sure if I'll get through a whole collection in one day and will sometimes feel I'm not doing justice to the poet. I read fiction quickly, too quickly to appreciate play of language and technique unless I force myself to really slow down like I'm doing with my current reread of Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon which is a beautifully poetic novel and needs a slow read. 

I will treat this challenge as the introduction to the poems I'm reading, a first splash about and then I can spend some time fully exploring my favourites later.

So Day 1: The Stone Age by Jen Hadfield. The book takes me further into all the things I love about Jen's work, the play of language, delving deep into imagery, an intense awareness of place and culture. I had been slowly digesting these poems since I bought it, but I'm glad I've dived into the whole book as it builds a world around the poems using the particular typeset and poem placement.

Jen says the poems look at neurodiversity. I love that she challenges my idea of how a poem works, untethering punctuation, unexpected line breaks though I feel I'm moving blindly not sure how to take a line that begins with a comma or the large, faint poems that seem to fade off the page. I am trying to give up some of my preconceived notions of poetry, but I want to find some recordings of her reading some of the poems, so I can feel and hear how she wades through them.

Jen is a friend and inspiration. I've been looking forward to seeing where her next book would take her. A beautifully sculpted collection.

My poem 'Hiraeth' has been published in the new issue of The Ogham Stone. Copies can be ordered here. It's one of those magazines I've been trying to get into for a while and a poem I've been hoping to find a home for probably even longer, so them coming together is a blessed event. The magazine is a weighty, professional read with fiction, poetry and reviews and I'm honoured to be included with so many excellent writers. 

Marble Poetry has also published one of my poems in Issue 9. Smaller, but equally beautifully produced the issue has work by some familiar names like Anna Saunders and Matthew Duggan and a few new ones I'm going to discover. Check it out.

Both magazines were nice enough to send me hard copies in Finland which I really appreciate. I know not all print magazines can afford that these days, so I'm very grateful. 

Book Review - Wintering by Katherine May

I have to admit I went into Katherine May's new book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times with specific expectations which is unusual for me with non-fiction books. Expectations about what wintering meant and what I was looking for from the book. I can't remember where I came across the recommendation for the book, but idea that caught my eye amounted to learning to cope with the winters of our life and a connection to Finland. 

I may have mentioned on this blog that I live in Finland and maybe hinted at that I'm not actually very happy about that anymore. While I'm making in-roads at finding a way to get out, I came to the book with the hope that I could find ways to make my stay in this very wintery place, both metaphorically and physically, bearable until I do. 

May says that 'wintering' is those times when we need to retreat from the world. It can be for a variety of reasons, illness, stress, ect. It's listening to your body's urge to hibernate, eat heavy meals, wrap up in wool and slow down. 

The book contains many of my favourite wintery things which is saying a lot because to be honest I am not a fan of the season of winter at all. But I do love the darkness and magic of Samhain, the Cailleach, standing stones, hibernation during the cold dark months, wolves. She also looks at a few I don't like as much like saunas and winter swimming. Both these latter things are very much part of the Finnish psyche, though Finland really doesn't feature much in the book outside of this. May turns to these various things to try and work through her wintering periods. 

Oddly, it felt like she was full of energy to go off and try all these various techniques, on her own and with other people, something I think many people who need to 'winter' would struggle with, to be social, try new adventures. I realise that the events and adventures she wrote about were maybe separated by years at different periods of wintering, but I would have liked more examination of how to face the dark stillness of winter when there aren't friends around or even strangers to go stand at Stonehenge on midsummer. This would have made the book even more helpful in the last year when we couldn't go out much when we have been forced to winter and many of us found it incredibly difficult.

She considers bees and wolves and other totems to give a sense of searching for an answer to how nature copes in winter. It still felt distant from what I was seeking. I guess as wintering is such a personal need it's hard to formulate solutions that will suit everyone. 

I liked that the book did not look at self-care in the way the media portrays it of long baths and scented candles, it is about pushing oneself to face the cold dark months, to step into the liminal spaces that take us out of the rush of the everyday world. May was open to more unusual avenues. Saunas were crossed off the when she suffered from heat exhaustion, obviously doing it wrong. 

Cold water swimming turned out to be more of her thing. I have a friend who loves doing this and some day I will be brave or crazy enough to join her. But I'm a person who passed out from the cold after swimming in the sea in Greece, in June, so maybe not the best idea without a sauna nearby to revive me.

In the end, though I went in looking for answers and left without a satisfying one, I did have a sense that there were the possibility of answers in her words, her explorations, just not for me and my questions. I enjoyed reading about some of my obsessions from someone else's point of view and her attempts to use them to examine this difficult issue. Her writing is soothing, honest and, at times fun, and I was not disappointed with the book. 

In my wintering periods, I turn to writing, among other traditional things like gardening, baking and crochet. Not poems or stories, but journaling, note taking, writing around the darkness that's crowding in on me. I become an explorer through words, unable to get out into the light, I dig deeper into my mind. 

Here's a writing prompt, what is winter to you? This can mean the actual season where you live or where you grew up or winter in May's sense, the fallow seasons of our lives. What rituals or memories do you connect with the idea of winter? Do you enjoy being in the heart of winter or do you long to move past it as quickly as possible?

The Presence and Presents of Trees - The IRON Book of Tree Poetry

I'm sitting here watching my silver birch turn yellow and rain leaves onto my garden. My next month of weekends will be taken up by raking and raking some more. I can set my seasonal clock by those birch, when they wake from our long winter, the allergies they give me in May, the green coins shaking above our hammock and their bare trunks shining in the midwinter dark. They appear in my Finnish poems regularly, a totem of my time here.

Like many other poets, I've written countless poems about trees or including trees. Something about their shape, movement, permanence and long life attracts the writer. I've written one just on how the leaves fell from a small stand of trees, trying hard not to use words normally connected with leaves or trees, but to become caught up in their dance. I've written about old trees and fallen trees, trees as a metaphor for growing old or for loss. One of my tutors offered a course using trees as inspiration last year and I decided against it because I couldn't imagine I had more to say about trees. 

This autumn, I was asked to review The IRON Book of Tree Poetry, edited by Eileen Jones and Peter Mortimer. I can now see that no matter how many ways a poet can look at a tree, there's always more to say, more to see. The collection includes more than 40 poets, some I'm familiar with such as Ken Cockburn and Rebecca Gethin, others new names. All offer a vast feast of language and images related to the theme. It may feel like a familiar subject, but it is examined through so many different lenses: sometimes up close, looking at a group or individual specimen or from the vantage point of a physical or a cultural setting, that the poems still managed to surprise me. At times, they turn back on the reader or humanity in general and say things that were uncomfortable to hear. 

Poems that examine new vistas on the presence, usage and importance of trees in our world. Poets who imagine being trees, who consider our inter-connection with them, who plant trees not for themselves, but for future generations. The trees gathered have names, personalities, places in history, in the landscape and in their poets' lives. Some feel like friends, others silent teachers, leading us to understanding. These poems are a 'copse of everything' to do with tree poetry, as Gill McEvoy says in her offering 'A Small Wood by the Sea'.

Not all the poems praise trees out-right. They acknowledge the complicated relationship humans have with trees: we use them, destroy them, pass them by everyday without truly noticing their beauty. Alan Lunt shows a humorous lack of love for the unusual species in 'Monkey Puzzle', "They're more like armoured skeletons than ordinary trees" while I've always found them amusing, especially after I learned their names. We connect to some trees more than others.

With a darker, more introspective note in 'Rhododendrons at Stapleford Wood', Celia McCulloch examines the plant's place in the British landscape and our treatment of it. Her stark comparisons with the current political upheaval around immigration rings uncomfortably true: "We ethnic-cleanse the woods of these dark, flamboyant strangers". It makes me second guess my reasons for recently removing an awkward one from my garden and replacing it with a horse chestnut.

Other poems feel comforting and familiar, a walk through a grove we have long visited, while some bedazzle with their rich language and shifting focus like the two poems by Katrina Porteous:

                 Climbing out of a ruin, a tangle of spikes
                           Snagged by the wash-pool, 

                                                       It corkscrews,
                                                   Crone-like,
                                                       Into debatable air.

                                                                   'Quickthorn'                    

Other poems take novel views of the relationship between trees and people by intertwining their stories and culture as in John Willby's heart-wrenching poem 'That Tree’s Mother Saved My Life' and Pauline Plummer's 'The Baobab'. They remind us that trees stretch beyond our lifetime, offering more than background for our experiences. 

With the upsurge of interest in rewilding, climate change and  our co-existence with the natural world this book's release is timely, but I really enjoyed the well-rounded view of the poems, looking at more than just trees' environmental impact. The book turns towards the resonance trees offer with our inner worlds, those spaces where poetry resides. 

Follow more on Facebook @Ironfestival for more reviews and details of the book and its blog tour.

Gearing up and Down Sizing

The schools have started back and we're in that transition period where the scheduling begins, the afternoons fill with hobbies and lessons and we shuffle them around until we can manage. My morning are quieter, but without a flow yet. I am still running around and catching up on errands, so haven't found a rhythm to fit my poetry in regularly. And being a substitute I'm always slightly on edge waiting for the phone to break into the silence. My interview is also coming up this week, so it's nipping at the edge of my mind as well. 

One thing I've started this week is reviewing my poems in consideration of an A5 page size. Suna Afshan at Poetry Birmingham Journal made an off-the-cuff remark on Twitter asking those  submitting to stop formatting poems in A4 docs. It caused a flurry of tweets of confusion, ah ha moments, discussion and it got me thinking. Print magazines and collections do mostly print in A5 or a similar size, so it makes sense. Though most also seem to ask for submissions in A4 (even PBJ), so maybe the industry needs to rethink things as well. 

I do often look at potential collections from that format, but I have never considered using that size to type my poems from the beginning. So it's thrown my work in disarray. I've changed all my potential collections and my rough draft files to A5 and am looking at how it changes the lay-out of the poems. I'm not rewriting many yet, but it is making me see things differently. 

I've noticed my newer poems do run shorter and fit in A5 comfortably for the most part, but my upcoming collection is mostly older poems and is sitting at over the page limit at the moment. I need to find out what size and style of font my publisher uses. I don't mind splitting a poem over two pages if necessary, but three or four lines dangling over looks wrong. I'm unsure what to do about those extra 5 pages I've suddenly gained.

Of course, for online magazines it's less of an issue. Magazines and competitions usually specify A4 and around a 40 line limit, but my lay-out is running about 28 lines to a page (2cm margins top and bottom, 11pt Arial font for text and a 16pt title.) One of the benefits of being trained in editing at a small magazine is I learned little tricks to make a poem fit on a page, how to lay out a book so it looks good, but I won't be able to do that with my collection being published.  

It's a small thing really, but I feel better using the A5 format from now on. I'll still write my poems first in my notebook, not caring about length or format, but it will be a consideration when editing and designing collections. And, of course, I'm definitely not suggesting that poets should write to please editors and to fit publications, but it helps to know how a poem will look on the page and if we're using A4 as our template the printed product may not look how we imagined. 

I'm also trying to get back into reviewing and reading poetry collections, so I read a few poems every night before bed, the one time I can be sure I have time. I have turned back to Fiona Benson's Vertigo and Ghost which I started last year. This is one of those collections I wish I had written, but not lived. Such beautiful writing that tears me apart emotionally. Even the more gentle ones about parenthood and the poet's fears connected with raising her girls in this difficult world when other mothers are leading their children through unimaginable dangers in the hope of finding safety and shelter dig into all my tender places. But Part One which is considers the mythology of Zeus in modern terms, as a serial rapist, is more of a punch to the throat. Benson plays with the words on the page, mixing modern language with ancient stories and uses a kind of interview format to give voices to the victims, Io, Callisto and others, as well as bragging, bravado-puffed Zeus. It goes much further than Yeats' 'Leda and the Swan'. Difficult to read as it doesn't shy from blunt emotion and descriptions, it is an important voice in these times when 'Me Too' is not a thing you wish to say, but it needs to be heard. 

I've been commissioned to write a review for a poetry collection late in the autumn, but more about that later. 

I'm off to edit and later enjoy some late summer sun. 

Slow Unwinding in February

It's been a slow writing week. No writing group due to childcare issues, no publications. One very positive acceptance and a handful of submissions I managed to get out. I managed to find a pocket or two of time to work on some unfinished poems. 

I've also bit the bullet and sent an application to do a reading into a local poetry event. I've tried to convince some of the other poets from my group to do a larger reading, but there have been no takers so far so I put in an individual application. I think we'll have a better chance to pull more of a crowd and get accepted if we could do a longer set with more people, but I'm happy to be added to another programme or do a short one on my own. Well, maybe not happy, scared silly is more apt, but I'll give it a go, if I get a chance.

I took a bit of time to read another Hedgehog Poetry publication The Legend of the Kettle Daughter by Amy Alexander. Accompanied by the author's artwork, the poems tell the story of the Kettle Daughter, Alexander's mother, through the imagery of Utah, moving between a cabin in the mountains to Salt Lake City and back again. 

The Kettle Daughter's daughter tries to unravel the mythology and family stories to understand what haunts her mother and in turn herself. 

'I existed, an audience
as she spoke everything
into myth,'

I was intrigued by these poems' slow opening, like moving hesitantly through a dim lit room. They pulled me to follow the threads they lay through the rooms with words and images to better understand the stories. The fine webs between them caught me, but lead me on carefully from one poem to the next. This is a collection I will have to reread several times to feel I've really followed everything, one that builds up in my mind as I traverse it again and again, but it's definitely worth the time.

The various Hedgehog collections I've managed to read, and I have a good pile left from the two Cult deliveries I've received, have each been their own creature. I couldn't put my finger on what kind of poem and poet Hedgehog prefers, no house style. Each book has their own appeal and strengths. I've found treasures in each pamphlet. As a future Hedgehog writer this is reassuring. Hopefully, I will fit because I have my own voice and my stories are strong enough to stand on their own.

Back to Work and to Barnhill

I've started back into writing slowly after my long break. I'm not currently doing a poem-a-day prompt, but working everyday on older poems. I'm editing those started on my last two month-long courses, focussing the language and intent. A few are ready to submit to journals, along with the pile of rejections that came in while I was away. I've noticed most American magazines seem to be on hiatus, but the British ones are still working on backlogs. 

I'm also going through some of my old journals for details of poems I've had on the back burner because I couldn't remember what actually happened. It's lovely how they have jogged my memory and taken me back to those places and times. Little details I have forgotten or placed onto different scenes brought into firm focus. Unfortunately, I didn't write about everything. Moments that seem important now often didn't get mentioned in my journals at all, either because they didn't seem of consequence at the time or life just got in the way of writing. I've never been one for writing every day which would help to rebuild moments later. 

I'm starting new poems on specific subjects that I decided I wanted to write about when I was travelling. I will start a new poetry course in August, so this seems to be a good way to get back into that more intensive work.

I finished reading Norman Bissell's Barnhill and it was a surprise as I bought it mostly on the connection with the place, rather than anything to do with George Orwell. I thought it would be more of a biography, but it's a biographical novel based on George Orwell's later years, especially those in connection with Jura and Barnhill and the writing of 1984. Less dry quoting of dates and details and more trying to capture the writer and his obsessions with writing, Jura and creating a strong family for his son.

I knew very little of Orwell's life, so learning about his connection with the Spanish Civil War, his marital and other relations and his illness were all very intruiging. Bissell also included the point of view of Orwell's second wife Sonia Brownell whose voice unexpectantly pops up and gives the reader new insight. The book also illustrates how Orwell might have drawn details from his own experiences when writing 1984.

While Barnhill tries to stick strongly to the facts of Orwell's life and there is a list at the end of known details which contribute to the story, it's the scenes where Bissell allows himself to imagine Orwell that the man really comes alive for me, spending Hogmanay in Glasgow, his worries about finishing his book when he knows he's dying and the connections he had with his friends. 

Though Bissell is a poet and director of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics he doesn't get caught up in the romanticism of Jura and life alone there which must be difficult to do as I was overawed by the place when I visited. The attention to Orwell's physical life there, taking care of the garden and fixing machinery sometimes taken from entries in Orwell's journal feels very focussed and fits in with the George Orwell drawn in the novel. I could very well remember my journey down the 'Long Road' to get to Barnhill from Ardlussa as I read Bissell's description of cars and motorbikes breaking down while trying to get along it.

I could occasionally feel a modern voice of hindsight coming in which felt as if it wanted to make sure the reader could see how spot on George Orwell was in his predictions of Big Brother and his fears of government control. When they came from George's mouth they worked, felt in character, but sometimes the narrative pushed too much. But I have to admit with the way current media and politics is going, I would have found it hard to resist pointing out the connections as well. I recently reread 1984 and was gobsmacked about how much closer we were creeping towards Orwell's nightmare vision than when I first read it in 1984 in high school in America . 

Overall, I enjoyed the book, it was informative, but it created a rounded and interesting view of Orwell's character and the time he was living in. The novel manages to illustrate the complexities of a difficult man who allowed little of his personal life to be seen by adding a greater depth to his novel masterpiece.

What I'm Reading Now and Ticking Along

I'm still trying to do the daily prompt and one way I'm getting ideas is Karl Ove Knausgård's book Autumn, a collection of vignettes written to his unborn daughter about every day items. He writes about apples or jellyfish, badgers, plastic bags and labia among other things. It's a quiet, meditative book, nothing shocking or earth-shatteringly beautiful but it has a lovely reflective feel to it and sometimes the language is hauntingly beautiful and melancholic. I carry it about and read it in short bursts in waiting rooms. There's three more in the series that I might get, following the names of the seasons, but it really makes me want to read his My Struggle series which is also autobiographical.

Anyway, I'm occasionally taking the subject of one of his sections and using that as a prompt for my own writing. Sometimes I get a poem, other times I just spend the time writing with no final output. I like the fact that I'm keeping up with writing practices, not every day, but often enough that I don't feel like I'm wasting my writing time. The poems are still coming, not daily like with the course, but one or two a week which I'm happy with. 

Otherwise, it's just back to the normal writing, editing, submitting, attending my writing group. I'm only working on poetry though we had a craft week on Friday discussing dialogue. We did a short writing exercise and it reminded me why I'm not working on my novel right now. I just can't get a feel for it at the moment, the characters just feel so tangled up, I can't get a hold on them or their motivations. So I'm happy to continue on with my poetry until I see a way out. It's still percolating in the back of my head, but I'm not really giving it any paper time.  

Enjoy your week.