Writer, Filmmaker, Mother, Grandmother
I'm returning to the city tomorrow, back to my home town of Glasgow. I've been at Maoil na nDreas, my home on Rathlin Island, for three weeks. I've been working (a lot) but I've also been holidaying, spending quality time with family, writing, laughing, looking. Just looking. We don't look enough. When we do, we… Continue reading Saying goodbye is easier when the island is keeping watch.
Rathlin Island, the only habited island in Northern Ireland, has been a hot topic recently after a half-joking (and therefore half-serious) post-Brexit campaign to join an independent Scotland was picked up by the Scottish media. The campaign was spotted by political correspondent Gerry Braiden and he subsequently wrote an extensive article in the Herald. This was followed by a… Continue reading Post #Brexit Rathlin Island isn’t just about Robert the Bruce, spiders and snakes.
A short time ago, I attended a seminar at the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde. Professor Callum G Brown was discussing "Laughing Out Loud in Oral Testimony: what does it mean?". Callum was talking about personal testimony interviews he had been recording as part of the research for his latest book, stating that he… Continue reading Laughing in literature, working class women in Scottish writing
I'll be in conversation with Professor Richard Haynes from the Stirling University Centre for Gender and Feminist Studies at a LEAP Sport Scotland / Scottish Book Trust Live Literature event tomorrow, 8th June 2016 at 18.30pm. Ironically, and quite aptly, we'll be discussing representations of gender in sport at the Stirling Boy's Club. You can book tickets here.… Continue reading Come along to my @leapsports @scottishbktrust event, 8th June.
The Dangerous Women Project is an initiative of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. The Project asks: what does it mean to be a ‘dangerous woman’? The idea that women are dangerous individually or collectively permeates many historical periods, cultures and areas of contemporary life (despite, and in some instances in… Continue reading Honeyballers: Lady Florence Dixie and the dangerous women of Scottish women’s football
The swallows are home from their travels, fountain pen tails inking the sky with stories, polished backs glistening like stars falling from the passing night. They are way too quick to allow me to photograph them but they are making their presence felt, swooping low and daringly along the edge of the patio, their new… Continue reading Pushing beyond the swallows at Maoil na nDreas.
I was back at the Mitchell Theatre in Glasgow last night, this time attending an Aye Write! event featuring Kate Tempest, hosted by the brilliant poet Holly McNish. My friend Beccy and I settled into the packed theatre, a room tense with creative anticipation. We soon found out that the passion was well-placed. Kate, well… Continue reading “All fiction begins in a lived truth” says @katetempest
It was the Equinox. Spring had returned from its confident march beyond the winter horizon, slipping back into its familiar cove. Crisp white snowdrops pressed against the blue expanse, the colours of the saltire blossoming under shards of light that swept triumphantly from a glittering, enthusiastic sun. As sunlight gave way to a pinky dusk… Continue reading Aye Write! The Books That Made Nicola Sturgeon.
It's St Patrick's Day, an event celebrated all over the world in memory of the Patron Saint of Ireland (who incidentally was born in Scotland so there's a very valid excuse to celebrate across the water too!). Whilst celebration, friendship, kinship and a few glasses of Guinness are on the menu for a lot of people… Continue reading A beautiful Irish poem for St Patrick’s Day
Grief is a monster. A parasite as heavy as sin that clings brutally to the emptiness that loss exhumes. It steals your breath, shocking your body at every turn, luring your soul into the slow tide of darkness. A bleak and endless eruption of eerie silence it rises methodically to the surface, piercing any hint of… Continue reading Grief is an emotional amputation.
Margot McCuaig 