Perthshire events, forgotten women writers and historic libraries
SHORT STORIES, TALL TREES
Birnam Book Festival workshop Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th September, 10.30am-4.30pm
I’ll be leading this workshop as part of Birnam Book Festival's contribution to Unplugged 2021. Participants will develop a short story drawing inspiration from the river, woodlands, paths and streets around Birnam. Carefully facilitated outdoor exercises will flex imaginations, and see character and place realised on the page, using the motion of walking to bring fluency of thought. No experience necessary.
This is a FREE event but there is a booking fee of £15. Places are limited so please register your interest as soon as possible by emailing contact@birnambookfestival.co.uk and before Saturday 11th September, saying why you're interested and what you hope to get from participating. Food and accommodation would be your own responsibility.
Innerpeffray Library’s Festival of Reading I’m delighted to be taking part in person in Innerpeffray Library's Festival of Reading 8-11th September. A beautiful and important place historically as Scotland's first public lending library, I set a radio play there in which the tiny book above featured (with the best title ever). The Borrowers' Register includes the names of readers including rural Perthshire folk locally, poachers, and even renowned suffragist and surgeon Elsie Inglis. Find out what this and other library registers reveal about past readers and reading with research project ‘Books and Borrowing, 1750-1850’ here.
My event is Friday 10th ‘Writing Fiction with An Eye on The Past’.
The Other Side of Stone in paperback Having sold out in hardback, Taproot Press have now issued a paperback of The Other Side of Stone, available for £9.99 directly from the publisher here (with no postage to pay) or order-able from any bookshop.
I continue to be cheered by reviews including this recent one from writer Rob McInroy in which, to my amazement, he compares my writing to that of Alan Garner (hero)!
‘The Other Side of Stone seamlessly melds a meditation on industry with our ancient Scots’ folklore and a radical history of modern society.’ The 'mill girl poetess' Ethel Carnie Holdsworth Having recently published fiction with a socialist, feminist early 20th century textile ‘mill girl’ at its heart (see above), it's been fascinating to read about Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, who was just such a woman and at the time a renowned writer; now a forgotten name. Hopefully her work will soon be available to read again. There’s more about efforts to revive her work and reputation here.
