Top Left Corner

Sorry, we've moved

2011-01-30T17:57:00.002Z

Since the Top Left Corner website went live, this blog hasn't really had a role to play.

For information about creative retreats and arts in Assynt, see the Top Left Corner website.

Mandy Haggith blogs as Cybercrofter. Helen Lockhart blogs at Ripplescrafts. John Bolland is here.

Advancing again

2010-07-06T14:40:00.003Z

Last week was the first of our creative retreat weeks at Glencanisp Lodge. A full moon rose, in tangerine eclipse, over the southern hills just before bed-time on the first night and things got better and better from that point on. The house was full, sometimes joyously noisy as fifteen exuberant writers and artists gathered to eat and drink together, sometimes hold-your-breath quiet as the guests got on with what they had come to do. Suilven, the mountain, was inaudible, but presided magnificently over proceedings, playing with clouds like a cheerleader plays with pompoms and giving us a spectacular sunset display on our penultimate night.

We had a rich, but not too heavy, programme. Each morning we had a 'creative warm-up', and a different group of people emerged each day to rub eyes and scribble down first thoughts. There were several workshops, some timetabled ('Feeling sensational' - on expressing emotions, 'Characters' - on the people and shape of our stories, and 'Beginnings and Endings') and some spontaneous: Kathy Kituai, our guest from Australia gave a fascinating session on her speciality of tankas, which inspired many of us to write in this 5-line Japanese poetry form. Colin Will led a renga-with-a-difference, using a Chinese journey form (see Colin's blog)and the result will go up on the TLC website before too long.

We had walks in the afternoons: I managed not to poison the guests on our 'taste of nature' walk, where they gamely munched on various delicious and not-so-tasty leaves and petals and sniffed their way into a collective literary rapture; we all got totally drenched on a walk appropriately enough on the theme of water; and we got wet again following the footsteps of Norman MacCaig at Inverkirkaig.

Some of the guests took up the chance to have a 'creative date', an idea we are testing out to give people the chance to spend time with a local person doing something they wouldn't normally do at home. Martin Hall came and taught yoga to one group, one guest had her first horse ride in years and our American guests had a wild walk in Achmelvich.

There was chat galore, singing, dancing, much tinkling on the piano, sketching, paddling in boats, walks out, a ceremony for the start of Sabbat, fireside toasts, readings, extensive consultations with the dictionary, sunshine, rain, a gale, scented orchids, tears, smiles, laughter and more laughter and laughter again.

Christine MacLeod performed wonders in the kitchen. John Bolland was always just there, being helpful, right up until after the end. It was great. I slept for two days and now I can't wait for the next one! 11-18 September and there are still a few places left.

MacCaig on Assynt

2010-06-16T17:25:00.003Z

I've just been given a copy of a guide to Lochinver and Assynt from the 1960s, price 13p (2/7d), which includes a piece called 'An Outsider Looks in' by Norman MacCaig, the self confessed 'townee', who describes his glimpses of 'a way of life in so many respects more civilised than that of the city' among 'land and sea-scapes which make this area, for me, the most beautiful part of a most beautiful country'.

'A particularly endearing thing about this landscape is also a characteristic of Celtic art - it takes a theme of small scope and shows an extraordinary inventiveness in producing variations on it. The scale is (physically) small; so that its distances and its heights seem greater than they are, and a walk of a few hundred yards puts you in the middle of an entirely new circle of views, all of them masterpieces. Wash these views, as shapes and sizes, in the ambivalent and insinuating light of the West, which spends a large part of its time performing quick self-transformations, and you get visual experiences which, never, never could become monotonous.'

And as for the people? 'They are friendly, realistic, generous and critical.... Centuries of hard necessity have made them able to turn their hands to any kind of job; while they are road-building, boat-building, byre-building, the smart man in the city is phoning a plumber to put a washer on a tap. Such independence adds a certain spice to their relations with 'authority' - a spice to be relished less publicly than here.'

So some things haven't changed!

Stick magic

2010-06-14T15:36:00.005Z

This shopping basket was one result of Top Left Corner's first weekend arts taster session - willow weaving with Tim Palmer (he's the one helping Jane with her basket). It took me an hour or so on Saturday and much of Sunday (when I wasn't taking pictures, gossiping, collecting money and generally wasting time). I am very pleased with it. And even more pleased that Top Left Corner has succeeded in making people smile. One happy customer:

And another!

A creative weekend in Assynt, and the weather was bad enough we didn't wish we were in the garden, unlike now...

Insurance

2010-06-10T11:18:00.002Z

We're desperately seeking a public and employer liability insurance policy for Top Left Corner that will not cost us a fortune. All suggestions most welcome.

The whole idea of insurance is distasteful, really. I'm one of those people who seems to have paid out endless premiums and never been eligible to claim for anything. Everything I've ever lost in transit has turned out not to have been covered. I missed a flight a few years back because I'd been arrested in Zimbabwe and even though there was no charge laid and the whole thing was quite clearly beyond my control, the insurers concluded that this was not a listed reason for disruption to my travel plans and therefore not covered. I've given up insuring my possessions because they're worth less than I'd pay by paying for a policy, so I cover any costs as and when I need to, effectively insuring myself.

But when it comes to doing business, laissez faire won't do. I can't believe we're ever going to need to claim, but we must line the pockets of the actuaries anyway.

Baskets

2010-06-01T12:11:00.005Z

It's the start of the month, so the To Do In May list has been scrumpled into a ball and tossed in the basket. It's a lovely basket, and I'm very proud of it. I made it on a course a few years ago. I remember it was a short day, and I was desperate to avoid making the border (the top bit) in a late afternoon panic. Borders need to look neat - they're the first bit of the basket that anyone sees, but as they're the last bit of the basket to make, I find that I'm always tired and in a hurry. The border is, I think, the most difficult bit of the basket. Or maybe it's just me, I find finishing things difficult in general.

Anyway, I was determined to use that course to really learn how to make a good border. So I planned it well. I took along a base I'd made earlier. I soaked up a load of buff willow (the stuff that has had its bark stripped off) knowing that this was the easiest kind of willow to use and if it dried out during the day I could easily wet it up again. So I had a head start and good materials. The course tutor (I think it was Lise Bech) taught me a great trick - doubling up the stakes so they're much closer than usual and using a weaving technique called 'fitching' in a spiral up the basket instead of having to weave the whole body of the basket as usual. I was ready for the border before lunchtime and it's probably the most even and well-formed I've ever achieved.

This is all by way of an excuse to explain why we're running a weekend-long basket-making session in Assynt on 12-13 June: making a basket in a day is a challenge, especially for a beginner, whereas a whole weekend gives plenty of time. We have Tim Palmer coming to Assynt and I know it's going to be a treat. He's been here before and is a wonderful teacher, gentle and encouraging and full of fascinating stories. I'm looking forward to hearing about the work he's done with an Orkney potter, reconstructing the old ways that neolithic people made baskets and pots. Most of all I'm looking forward to the miracle-feeling that basket-making never fails to deliver. There are few things more satisfying than turning a bundle of sticks into a vessel: something that you can take home and use, often something more beautiful than you expected. A thing with form and function out of a scatter of sticks. Magic.

(The basket in the picture is by Pip Weaser, from Oban).

June retreat is full

2010-05-29T12:58:00.004Z

The retreat week at Glencanisp Lodge which will run from 26 June - 3 July has sold out, with the last room taken by a couple from the USA. We also have someone coming from Australia, so it will be a global mix of writers and artists. The days will be long and beautiful and Suilven will preside over us. Just four weeks to go and I can't wait.

The photo above is one of John Bolland's. He'll be there with us in June, on his seventh Glencanisp retreat, and we will also be honoured to have Colin Will with us for the third time. He is promising to share a Chinese method of group-poem writing about mountains and rivers, which will add a little extra international spice. The fact that people keep coming back over and over again gives me a warm, tickly sense that we're onto something here.

The TLC team is growing

2010-05-28T16:03:00.008Z

Last night, Top Left Corner gained two new directors, Helen Steven and Helen Lockhart. Both live in Assynt and are passionate about the arts and our community. Helen S is a peace activist and painter. Helen L runs a knitting and yarn business. I'm delighted to have them involved.

John Bolland, our other director, has been here for the past couple of days, and we've been doing a 'Develop Your Social Enterprise' course, which gave us plenty of opportunity for dreaming up new ideas for the company. The most basic of these is that we're going to spend time finding out what arts events and experiences people here in Assynt would like to have, and then we'll try to work out how to make them happen.

We're also planning to design a week-long creative event for people involved in Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethical Investment. Assynt is such an inspiring place to come to experience what community empowerment and sustainability mean in reality. We'd like to offer some people with important corporate responsibilities the chance to learn from our experiences here, make connections to the land and community and respond creatively - in words, pictures, clay, wool or sound.

Spring

2010-05-26T18:23:00.002Z

Hibernation over. Time to get busy on line again.

Lots of things happening at Top Left Corner. We've become a company, a Community Interest Company, in particular, so our not-for-profit status is formalised. If we can generate a surplus from our various activities (retreats at Glencanisp Lodge, workshops, events and any other ways we can come up with to support creativity in Assynt) it will be divided between our two beneficiaries: Assynt Foundation, representing the community of Assynt, and Scottish International Pen, representing the wider creative community. The idea of a surplus is currently more of a dream than reality, but I'm working on it!

The retreat weeks for 2010-11 at Glencanisp Lodge are booking up. The lodge has been refurbished over the winter and everyone agrees it looks gorgeous. There's only one place left on the June retreat week, and some enquiries have been made, so I'm hopeful we'll sell out, which would be a good morale boost not to mention helping our cash flow situation. (I'll try not to mention our cash flow situation too often.)

We're making plans to celebrate Norman MacCaig's birth centenary in November. Big plans. Funding permitting, it's going to be what's known in these parts as a hoolie. 6-13 November. Put it in your diary.

We've also launched a poetry competition. The best poem we get by 31 July will win its author a free retreat, and there are cash prizes too, thanks to Hi-Arts. Details of the competition, as well as booking forms for the retreats is at the Top Left Corner website.

More soon, I promise.

The Best Writing Retreat in Western Europe

2009-11-02T18:32:00.002Z

We are now taking bookings for writing retreats starting in June 2010 at the inspirational Glencanisp Lodge, which is currently being refurbished, to make it warm, comfortable and luxurious. There are no qualifications required to come and no compulsory activities, just an opportunity for writers or other creative people to develop their work in progress in a peaceful and stunningly beautiful environment.

Six retreat weeks are available from 2010 to 2011:
• 26 June – 3 July 2010
Midsummer in Assynt gives long, long days and the flowers, birds and other wildlife are at the peak of their season.
• 11 – 18 September 2010
Out on the moors the heather is in full flower, while the woods are bursting with fruit and the sea is at its warmest.
• 30 October – 6 November 2010
Late autumn in Assynt is sheer magic. Low-angled light sets the moors ablaze. Stags roar for the rut and flocks of migrant birds steal the last of the berries. Bring your camera, paints or wools as well as your pen. The next week is also available, giving you the option of a fortnight’s retreat.
• 6 – 13 November 2010
This week we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Norman MacCaig, who wrote so much of his best poetry in and about Assynt. There will be lots of opportunities to visit some of the places he stayed and wrote about, to share and appreciate his poems and to meet local people who knew him.
• 8-15 January 2011
After the season of over-indulgence, it’s the perfect time to quieten down and keep your new year’s resolutions to be creative: whether that’s writing, painting or craftwork. There will be a log fire burning at all times and both writing and textile crafts experts on hand to give encouragement.
• 26 March – 2 April 2011
Spring comes quietly in Assynt, but its song is beautiful. It’s the time of primroses and violets, thrushes, warblers and the wingbeats of geese skeins heading north.

This is the fourth year Glencanisp Lodge has hosted writing retreats. Over this time, the retreats have provided space, tranquility and stimulation for more than 40 published and aspiring poets, short story writers and novelists including Margaret Elphinstone, Rodge Glass, Jason Donald, Paula Jennings and Colin Will.

Previous retreaters have said: ‘The best writing retreat in Western Europe…’, ‘I had a wonderful time, thank you so much. I feel refreshed and inspired…’, ‘I adored the peace and quiet, the scenery, the food and the company…’, ‘What did I write? One new poem every day…’, ‘It was great. Being here allowed me to have insights into how to progress my novel…’, ‘Distance from my normal existence has produced work that I’m proud of, encapsulating some of the magic of this place…’, ‘A lovely house overlooking the most wonderful views…’.

Any writers or other creative people are welcome on the retreats, which cost £480 per person (June, September) or £420 (October, November, January, March). The retreats run from Saturday to Saturday, a whole week’s writing time. Everyone gets a private and comfortable room to themselves, many of which have spectacular views out to the iconic mountain of Suilven or into the mature woods around the Lodge. Delicious home-cooked food is included. A facilitator is on hand to give feedback or writing advice if desired.

To reserve a place on a retreat please send a deposit of £200, cheque made out to 'Top Left Corner'. Deposits are non-refundable in case of cancellation by you, but if we cancel, we will repay in full. Full payment is due 8 weeks before the retreat begins.

For more information please don't hesitate to get in touch.
Email: hag@worldforests.org
Phone: +44 (0)1571 844020
Mobile: +44 (0)7734 235704
Address: Top Left Corner, 95 Achmelvich, Lochinver, Sutherland, IV27 4JB, Scotland

New directions

2009-09-23T17:10:00.005Z

I have spent the day finding out about social enterprises and wondering if Top Left Corner should or conceivably could evolve into a community interest company. This is such a deeply boring question that I am amazed to find myself giving it even 10 minutes of consideration, but on the other hand, I am quailing at the prospect of paying out somewhere in excess of £12,000 to rent Glencanisp Lodge for writing retreats, which I want to run in 2010 and 2011. This is more than I earn in a year. It is simply not rational to take this kind of financial risk on my own. So I turn to face the demon of bureaucracy, and his eyes burn.

Here's something to take our minds off such horrors. My book Paper Trails got a mention ('compelling and terrifying') in the Observer at the weekend. I'm not trying to be a doom-merchant, honest. I am much more cheery in a piece that I have published in a forthcoming book of nature writing called A Wilder Vein published by Two Ravens Press, whose new website is looking great. By the way, the Two Ravens website is much the cheapest place to buy copies of my other books, The Last Bear and Castings. I feel justified in putting these gratuitous plugs in because the links are new and anyway, if I can't plug my books, who can? The Hexham Courant, the local newspaper where I grew up, has done a local girl done good piece about the Last Bear winning the Robin Jenkins prize.

Tomorrow I return to the question of how to help Top Left Corner bring more writers to Assynt. What kind of administrative creature is it? Our discussions today covered organisational values. Mine are simplicity, creativity, love, rahayu and love of the earth. It's not at all clear that these translate in any obvious manner to a standard business model, though I'm happy to be told otherwise.

Benefit gig and other diary dates

2009-09-04T16:43:00.003Z

Tonight I'm part of a charity ceilidh at Lochinver Village Hall, in aid of Macmillan Cancer Care - I never thought I'd hear myself saying 'I'm doing a benefit gig tonight'. But I am.

The week after next I will be teaching a creative writing course on Iona. Its theme is 'sense of place', and it is being organised by Steph Green. I believe there are still places available. I'm particularly looking forward to the boat trip to Staffa and hope we have the weather for it. I've only been to Iona once, in 2002, and it remains in my memory for two reasons. The first was a stunning clarity of light. The second was a good bookshop where I discovered 'The Artists Way', a book by Julia Cameron which recommends a methodology for creativity involving daily stream-of-consciousness writing and weekly self-indulgent treats. It worked for me.

The following weekend, 19-20 September I'll be at the Black Isle Words Festival at Cromarty, where I'm doing poetry on Sunday morning.

Then on 24 September, I'll be reading from The Last Bear at a Highland Society of Authors event at the MacPhail Centre Library in Ullapool. On Saturday 27 September, it's Hidden City, a poetry walking extravaganza in Glasgow as part of the Merchant City Festival. On 14 October I'll be in Dunoon, Ballimore House as part of the Cowal festival, wearing my 'Robin Jenkins' prize rosette. Hopefully I'll get some time for writing in between trips away.

First Prize for The Last Bear

2009-09-01T15:32:00.003Z

It has taken a week to sink in. Last Monday, at the Edinburgh Book Festival, Minister for Culture Mike Russell opened the envelope containing the name of the winner of the Robin Jenkins Literary Award, and read out 'The Last Bear' by Mandy Haggith. Blow me down with a feather. Wow. I was speechless. Fortunately, rather than having to extemporise, I was asked to read from the book and managed not to stumble too badly through a page or so of sleepy-old-bear from page 42-3. I'm still pretty much struck dumb by it. And absolutely delighted.

I am now faced by two difficult questions. Firstly, what should I do with the £5000 prize money? Share it with the other excellent authors on the shortlist? Give it to some deserving cause? Blow it on a trip somewhere exciting? Buy all those books I want? Stash it away in the hope of one day accumulating enough money to upgrade from a caravan to a house? Or live on it, thereby stretching the time, currently being paid for by the Scottish Arts Council (thank you, thank you, thank you), I can spend on writing instead of having to do other stuff to earn a pound?

Secondly, how do I make the most of winning? The novel hasn't exactly been a bestseller so far - is there any way that being deemed the best environmental writing in Scotland this year might garner it a few more readers? The news release does not seem to have generated much interest in the prize from the press. It seems to have sold out at Amazon, which is perhaps encouraging, though it's cheaper to buy it direct from the publishers here. Suggestions much appreciated.

Loose Tongues

2009-08-16T16:45:00.002Z

That's me grinning on the right side of the longest line-up ever of 'Loose Tongues' - a women's poetry performance group that I've been a member of since Steph Green formed it a few years back. We performed as part of the Edinburgh Free Fringe, on Tuesday 11 August. The audience was as warm as any I've ever experienced - heckling, laughing and clapping. There was even the odd cheer, and some book sales, always gratifying. It was great to meet the new members of the group. From the left: Lynsey Calderwood, Stephanie Green, Irene Brown, Patricia Ace, Janie McKie, Elaine Feeney and me.

I'm looking forwards to my next Edinburgh event on Thursday 20 August (Blackwell's South Bridge, 6-8pm), and finding out who has won the Robin Jenkins Literary Award on 24 August.

Edinburgh Events

2009-08-03T16:29:00.002Z

I have just heard that The Last Bear has been shortlisted for the Robin Jenkins Literary Award, and we'll find out who the winner is at an event on 24 August at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Very exciting.

I am due to be in Edinburgh then anyway, as I am due to give a reading from the Bear at Blackwell bookshop on South Bridge at 7pm on Thursday 20 August, after which I'll spend a few days festivaling.

I also have another Edinburgh gig, as part of Loose Tongues, a bunch of feisty women writers, and we're performing at Fingers Piano Bar, Frederick Street at 7.50pm on Tuesday 11 August, as part of the Underword free festival.

Assynt Mountains

2009-06-29T12:09:00.004Z

the row of crones
rugs on knees
watch the coalfire dawn

Canisp, nearest the blaze, grins

the sun rises
between blackened stumps
in ancient Lewisian gums

This poem is being included in the Edexcel GCSE English poetry anthology, with a print run by Pearson of 100,000 - a mindblowing concept for a poet! There's no financial benefit, but it's a great feeling to think that tens of thousands of teenagers may soon be reading about Canisp.

The poem was one of the first I ever had published, way back in 2002 by Northwords. It was included in my 2005 pamphlet letting light in, proceeds of which helped in their tiny way to enable Canisp, along with three other Assynt mountains, to become community-owned. One of these days I'll get round to bringing letting light in back into print.

Paper Trails makes you feel good

2008-07-22T11:24:00.004Z

I put the phone down after a phone conference discussing the work I'm doing with UK companies to encourage them to reduce their paper consumption. It rang again immediately. This time it was Jo, the publicist at Virgin Books/Random House, checking in with me about progress getting the word out about Paper Trails. There's a review in The Times. Someone has read it and understood the problems with paper, yet was left feeling optimistic. I'm delighted.

Now I have to try to get hold of some copies in time for a string of reading events around Scotland coming up in the next few weeks:

Thursday 24 July, Lochcroispol Bookshop, Durness
Sat/Sun 26/27 July, Big Tent Festival, Falkland, Fife
Monday 28 July, Library, Dornoch
Tuesday 12 August, Achins Bookshop, Inverkirkaig
Fri/Sat 8/9 August, Belladrum Festival, near Inverness
Thur 21 August, Word Power Books, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The 12 August event will be the real launch - until the people of Assynt have given Paper Trails a send-off it won't feel as if we're really sailing.

Paper Trails

2008-07-16T14:52:00.005Z

My non-fiction book, Paper Trails: From Trees to Trash - the True Cost of Paper, is out now, available from all good bookshops and from Virgin Books/Random House's website.

Here's a video taste of what it's about.

or read all about it in the Independent.

Editor's choice!

2008-07-01T16:44:00.003Z

My novel, The Last Bear, is the Editor's Choice in Historical Novels Review, issue 44. It's nice to be appreciated by the specialists! Here's the review:

"Brigid is the last in a long line of medicine women; she lives alone in the forest since she has been banished from the local community by James, the priest and brother-in-law of the headman, Bjorn. One thousand years ago, the Vikings are settled in the North West Highlands of Scotland, and the spread of Christianity clashes with the old pagan beliefs; conflicts arise and loyalties become confused. In her forest home, Brigid watches and marks the changes and their effects on the people and their world as the new ways encroach on the community, even into the forest. With the death of the last bear, the world is changed forever. There is no escaping the long-term effects that man imposes on his environment - a theme that resonates today.

"Beautifully written, this is a wonderful mix of legend and historical romance: a moving and exciting first novel from a fine writer."

Wolves and bears

2008-05-08T10:19:00.004Z

I'm just back from a few weeks away in Bulgaria in search of bears coming out of hibernation - one sighting only, but the forests were stunning. The bonus of spending time out in the woods hoping to see bears is the glimpses that you get of other animals - this time it included a pack of wolves. So by coincidence I discover that The Last Bear has been favourably reviewed on Vulpes Libris.

Next week the first Top Left Corner writing retreat is happening at Glencanisp Lodge, so the day is full of organisation of everything from writing tables to food. The weather is glorious - blue, hot, calm and flower-scented. Please let it last!

Launched and ready to party

2008-03-31T08:50:00.003Z

So how did the launch go? How does one tell? I sold a stack of books, the bookshop cafe was stuffed full of people and they laughed, nodded, smiled, then complained that I'd left them with a cliff-hanger of a reading - but that's my job isn't it?

I read three sections - starting near the end with the Vikings - Sigurd the Stout, the only historical character in the book, and my 'hero' Bjorn, Sigurd's fictional nephew, alluding to the story that has unfolded, but without giving too much away. Then I read a section from the beginning introducing Margaret, Bjorn's wife, a Christian Scot. I finished with the central character, Brigid, pagan, shaman, medicine woman. And of course, the bear.

After the launch the reading group chewed over the book, which was very revealing, not least because it showed how much of what we find in books is as much about us as about the book. Four typos have been identified by Nigel, who is disappointed when he scores less than 500 at Scrabble, so I bow to his superior knowledge. There was an in-depth discussion of language - I have everyone speaking English, but of course nobody would have done in reality: the Vikings would have spoken Norse, the Scots a form of Gaelic and who knows really what Brigid and the other indigenous pre-Christians spoke in these parts back then?

The main point of disagreement was about whether the book is unreasonable in its portrayal of Christianity through the various Christian characters. This generated, perhaps not surprisingly, strong opinions on both sides. Perhaps I should be pleased to have generated controversy.

The challenge is to keep hearing the things that people enjoyed ('the flow of the story', 'evocative sense of place', 'I loved that whole pagan thing') as well as the criticisms. I have earned brownie points in the village for bravery, if nothing else. I hope it doesn't get much more difficult than this.

The next event is the launch party in Glasgow: Uisge Beatha, Woodlands Road, 2 April, 7pm. All welcome!

Preparing to launch

2008-03-25T17:22:00.003Z

Tomorrow is the launch event for The Last Bear, at my local bookshop, Achins in Inverkirkaig. It's at 4pm. Is that too early for alcohol? Surely not. In the evening the local reading group is discussing it, a prospect akin to a PhD examination. To try to balance how nervous I feel about it, here are some confidence boosting comments.

My father has sent me his views. They are positive, as you might expect, or at least hope, and include 'mightily impressed' and 'The thought, imagination and the obvious research behind it all takes my breath away'. Parental approval, I'm a sucker for it. Thanks Dad. It is now on my mother's bedside table. I am trying not to think about that too hard.

An author friend liked it too: 'I was gripped and barely put the book down. It's a grand tragedy with many layers of sorrow and loss... The justice served out at the end is also very cleverly and surprisingly handled...The women are especially vibrant... I love noticing how these women held things together, shared secrets, studied medicines and passed the knowledge to their daughters. Frigga is brilliant.'

And even better, a comment just in: 'exquisite prose perfection'. Wow!

I was asked today if it was scarier to face an audience of strangers or my local community. There is no question - it is far more frightening to stand up and 'show off' in front of people I know, folk who I'll meet in the village or pass on the road the day after tomorrow, than to perform in a city to a room full of unfamiliar faces. I have had to read locally twice before: once in 2005 to launch my first poetry collection, letting light in, and once last year when the local reading group critiqued my poetry book Castings. They were kind to me and I survived, of course - finding out the response of people you know to your writing is intriguing, exciting, enthralling, devastating, life-enhancing. But it's fearful and a real challenge to disassociate from the work enough to hear what people say, to separate their views about the text from their possible opinions about the person. The words, the story, the characters are out there now, no longer mine all mine, and tomorrow I'll let them go.

Seven years

2008-03-19T17:35:00.006Z

The Press and Journal has done a wee piece about the seven-year journey from starting to write The Last Bear to eventual publication. It's here.

Apparantly it is out on the tables in Waterstones: it's on a 3 for 2 offer in Scotland. I'll have to see it to believe it! Here's hoping that the chocolate bear on the cover makes people want to pick it up.

Publication day for The Last Bear

2008-03-17T18:06:00.000Z

It seems appropriate to start this blog on the day that my first novel, The Last Bear, is published by Two Ravens Press. (Here I would insert a wav file of a tinny but pleasing, if a little cheesy, trumpet fanfare, but that would require me to be technologically savvy enough to know how to do so - first question to readers, how does one attach a sound file to a blog post?)

Publication day. A story of love, jealousy, family and faith, set 1000 years ago in the remote Highlands of Scotland, when powerful Viking families clashed with Celts and old pagan beliefs were challenged by Christianity.

The media campaign has begun, a deluge of invitations to the launch have been mailed and posters are plastered all over town. That is to say, I've emailed a press release to the local paper, sent postcards to my friends and an A4 sheet is pinned up on a few notice boards in the village. Who killed the last bear in Scotland, and with what consequences? Strangely, paparazzi have not flocked to the croft. In fact not much flocking has gone on at all, not even from the few maggoty sheep that usually bother us at this time of year. The phone has not stopped ringing. It has not started ringing. Nobody has called at all. Not even my mum.

At about 4pm, I actually phoned Sharon, my publisher, to remind her that it was publication day. "Oh yes, so it is," she said. "There's so much work before and after, it's easy to miss the actual day."

Still, it's hard to shift the first book bliss. Publication day is a great excuse for wandering about in a haze of clichéd author dreams: book festival fantasies, visions of the glow that will shine from newspaper reviews, reveries of satisfied readers putting the book down with an urge for more. A tale of a natural and spiritual crisis, told from the point of view of one extraordinary woman.

I've actually had The Last Bear in my hands for a couple of weeks, and even sold a few already. I know four people have read it, and if you include my editor that's a handful. Here's what they said:

The bookseller: "We got "The Last Bear" in on Wed afternoon and I finished it at 3AM Thur. Loved it! My mark of a great book is if I can't put it down - and I didn't!
The poetry editor: "Well done you. A vivid sense of terrain... Especially I wanted to be inside the bendershelter that [Brigid] the bear guardian lived in."
The novelist Margaret Elphinstone: "The Last Bear is as much poem as prose, a lament for the last bear in Scotland, and the human ways of life that died with her. With the imposition of an alien religion the old harmonies are disrupted; the last bear is the final sacrifice of the old order. The Last Bear focuses on a pivotal historical moment, yet the results echo on down the centuries: the pain and loss of The Last Bear is, in fact, our own."
My dad: no comment.

It's available at all good bookshops, as they say, but it's much friendlier to buy it direct from me or online (free post and packing) from Two Ravens Press.