publications

A Two-Headed Tale

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Episodes 9 and 10 of the Paperboats Podcast have their roots in a striking symbiosis between two writers and environmental campaigners, each drawing compelling parallels between the whaling industry and our continued reliance on fossil fuels.

In Episode 9,Matt Sowerby reads from his essay, ‘Hope is The Thing with Flippers’, which was the winning entry to the 2024 Nature Chronicles Prize, discussing the inspiration and thinking behind it. He also talks about the legacy of whaling and what we can learn in context with the climate crisis and the use of fossil fuels; about his journey as both an activist and writer; the relationship between writing, activism and performance; and his current writing focus on oil and the ocean. He closes with a moving account of his thoughts on what hope might mean in the face of the climate emergency, and a second reading from his award-winning essay.

In Episode 10,Sandy Winterbottom reads an extract from her adventure travel memoir, The Two Headed Whale, which describes her experience finding the grave of a young whaler while visiting an abandoned whaling station on South Georgia during her life-changing voyage to Antarctica in 2016. She talks about the journey of discovery and understanding the writing of the book took her on as she uncovered the tragic details of the young whaler’s life, drawing parallels between whaling and a self-perpetuating fossil fuel industry. Sandy also describes an event that she organised to bring writers and activists together at Aberdeen’s Maritime Museum in 2024 which took its name from Matt’s essay and featured his solo performance of the stage adaptation. Sandy also talks about hope, about action, and the importance of a just transition. The episode closes with a reading from recent work Sandy published in the Scotsman.

Episode 10 with Sandy marks the final episode of Season 1 of the podcast, but it will be back in the autumn for a second season featuring interviews and readings from more writers, artists and poets associated with the Paperboats Writers collective.

It has been a real privilege spending time in their company, so do take some time out to catch these two wonderful writers working so well together to capture the same themes in wonderfully different ways.

Follow the link below to listen, like, share and subscribe.

Paperboats Writers Podcast

Nature Micro-stories

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I feel very lucky to have spent a couple of days earlier this month at Elmley Nature Reserve on a small writing commission.

Such a wonderful reserve – an island haven for nature on Sheppey, fringed by industry and urban development. But it’s a place of distant horizons and big skies, amazing insect, bird and plant life, and fascinating history.

I’ve been writing about hares and the Bronze Age, an abandoned Victorian school and its resident Little Owls, elm trees and Elmley Hill, the Mesolithic and medicinal meadows – all for an illustrated booklet alongside 3 other writers to help visitors connect with the reserve, its habitats and wildlife. There was so much to try to capture and contain and lots of notes to go through, but I’m looking forward to seeing the final results, including illustrations by the wonderful Kate Winter.

It’s a long journey to-from rural Aberdeenshire but worth it. It’s not often we get chance to connect with nature in such an immersive way, and to be spoiled by the kind of hospitality shown to me during my visit. If you’re ever visiting the busy SE, do take time to include the reserve – some of our rarest species hang on there, all with the support of the staff who have turned Elmley into the refuge it has become.

I’ll be posting links up to the finished booklet / micro-stories when the project concludes.

elm is me and I am elm

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“Where do the trees end and I begin? Where is the boundary between tree, roots, soil, air, my breathing and thinking and being? It is not just a hippy idea of ‘oneness’, this, a flaky new age folksy feeling that yes, we are all connected, but an intellectual, phenomenological and objective reality. Everything really is whole within the multitudinous, messy complexity of everything.”

An extract from my essay ‘elm is me and I am elm’ in the Paperboats Zine, Issue 5, released for Earth Day 2025.

The essay explores our deep entanglements with Nature through the presence, folklore and mythology of the wych elm, and reconsiders the false boundaries between the human and non-human worlds. It goes on to ask how we might incorporate the interrelationships we have with Nature in our thinking and planning, bringing in ideas found in ecology and more radical urban design.

I first wrote about the wych elm here on Elsewhere: A Journal of Place.

Issue 5 of the Paperboats Zine as a whole is on the theme of ‘Our Power – Our Planet’ and is edited by Polly Pullar and Linda Cracknell.

‘Power is addressed in the repercussions of our energy choices, but also in humans working together for common good and in sometimes relinquishing control so other species and habitats can flourish.’

The editors, Paperboats Zine Issue 5.

There is a fantastic range of writing in this issue, by some wonderful writers, with words from:

Margaret Elphinstone, Jonathan Clark, Hayli McClain, Charlie Gracie, Rebecca Stonehill, Anthony McCluskey, Lesley Harrison, Aidan Semmens, Victoria NicIomhair, Donald S Murray, Iona Macduff, Jeff Skinner, Craig Dobson, Angela Gilchrist, Joshua Adam Walker, Owen Gallagher, Kat Hill, Chris Cottom & Sarah Wallis.

Head to Paperboats.org/zine to read this and previous issues.

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.