island literature

The Weight of Quiet Things

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It’s great to see this anthology come into the world and to have a contributing essay within its pages.

Published by the wonderful Arkbound UK,’The Weight of Quiet Things gathers essays, stories and poems that explore the deep, enduring relationship between the Scottish landscape and its people.’ Edited by Bridget Reaume, this is a collection ‘about what we take from the land, what the land takes from us and the weight of what remains.’

My essay ‘A Bridge to Nowhere: Land Use and Misuse on the Isle of Lewis’ comes out of a return visit to the Isle of Lewis where I lived for a time in the early noughties. As an incomer, I wanted to understand more about the island’s history and culture, and how the legacies of the past continue to shape its identity today. An abandoned bridge project spearheaded by Lord Leverhulme as part of his ambitious plans to commercialise the islands in the years following WWI seemed emblematic of both the misplaced good intentions of the outsider and the spirit of the islanders themselves. 

The collection is published in April but you can order ahead at the presale link below:

The Weight of Quiet Things Presale

New Essay Published on THE CLEARING

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‘I was left breathless by the wind – and the view – and Lewis took on a suddenly different feel: an awe-inspiring island of sense and frightening clarity; a lost world of elements; a dreamed-of place caught between sea and sky.’

A new essay on The Clearing – Little Toller Books’ online journal of Nature, Landscape and Place. 

‘Between Sea and Sky’ comes out of a research trip to Lewis back in 2022 and explores the changing land use on the islands. I met with a modern day crofter who, like many new generation crofters, is moving away from traditional crofting practices and using her land to plant native woodland instead of keeping livestock. She talked movingly about her experience relocating to and living on the islands, and of the deep connection she has found with the land. 

I had a great stay on Lewis and wrote a lot about my time there – it was a homecoming of sorts – a return – having lived in Stornoway for a while back in the mid-noughties. It’s not an easy place to live, especially as an incomer, but it’s a place I keep going back to. 

Thanks as ever to editor Jon Woolcott and to crofter Susanne Erbida for taking time to meet with me during my visit.

You can read the essay through the link below. I’d love to hear what you think of it.

Between Sea and Sky

Scotland’s Wild Deer Dilemma

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The latest episode of the Paperboats Podcast, released Friday March 07, features author and poet Leonie Charlton.

Leonie lives in Argyll and is currently undertaking a practice-based PhD exploring Scotland’s ‘wild deer dilemma’ through the University of the Highlands and Islands. Her publications include her debut poetry pamphlet Ten Minutes of Weather Away (Cinnamon Press, 2021), and her travel-memoir Marram (Sandstone Press, 2020), which was Waterstone’s Scottish Book of the Month for April 2022.

Leonie reads an extract from her diary essay ‘Fragments’, which first featured in Issue 1 of the Paperboats Zine and is included in the travel writing anthology There She Goes, edited by Esa Aldegheri and published by Saraband this month. Leonie discusses spiritual ecology, our lost connections with nature, and the way she approaches writing about the more-than-human world. She also talks about her PhD by practice and the conflict of interests inherent in deer management and re-wilding.

I had a very open and meaningful chat with Leonie that offers real insight into her work and the issues she writes about, so please do head to your preferred podcast platform, grab a coffee and take thirty minutes out to give it a listen. And if you enjoy it, follow and subscribe to keep up with all future episodes, released each month across all platforms.

Thank you for taking time to read this, and please do leave a comment if you enjoyed this podcast.

Latest Paperboats Podcast Live

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In the latest episode of the Paperboats Podcast I speak with naturalist, photographer and nature writer, Polly Pullar.

Polly talks about her early life growing up in Ardnamurchan on the west coast of Scotland, how her love of nature and wildlife brought her solace through a difficult period and continues to inspire her passionately today. She discusses the plight of Scotland’s wildlife under the pressures of climate change and habitat loss, and reads from her Paperboats Zine piece, ‘A Solan Goose Summer,’ which highlights how climate change, the avian bird-flu epidemic, and increasing food scarcity is threatening this wonderful seabird.

Polly has regular columns in numerous magazines including The Scots Magazine and BBC Wildlife Magazine, and features in the Paperboats Zine. Her most recent book, The Horizontal Oak – A Life in Nature, was published by Birlinn in 2022. 

I had a great chat with Polly. Her love of nature and her zest for life is infectious, so I hope you’ll give this episode a listen, and if you enjoy it, please do like and subscribe! 

If you’re concerned about climate change, want to delve further into the issues surrounding it, and like great writing, the Paperboats Podcast brings you a host of fantastic nature writers. 

Find it on your preferred platform or head to Paperboats Podcasts and follow the links from there.

Enjoy.

New Writing on THE CLEARING

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‘The screeching increased, and we found the terns now hovering above our heads: dark, piercing eyes glaring down at us, the flash of razored wings folding in on themselves in a sudden flurry of air and feathers as they dove to drive us off. We stumbled on, wary of our footsteps and continually harried by the terns. Eventually we came across a half-collapsed stone dyke and ducked down behind it, leaving the mass of screaming birds behind and feeling guilty for our intrusion.’

Very happy to have some new writing back on THE CLEARING.

It stems from a trip to Orkney in the summer where I had an encounter with an arctic tern colony, and reflects on the draw of the islands and the potential negative impacts of tourism on Orkney’s wildlife.

THE CLEARING is a journal of landscape, nature and place published by Little Toller based in Dorset and edited by Jon Woolcott, author of Real Dorset.