Nature and Environment

A new Poem in â€˜EDENS’

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I’ve been involved with the Paperboats Writers Collective for a few years now – a group of writers focussed on Nature and Environment at this time of ecological and climate breakdown – and I am very happy to have a poem featured in the latest Issue of the Paperboats E-Zine.

This issue revolves around the theme of Edens – Edens lost but also Edens hoped for or imagined, and grounded in the reality of the world we live in. My poem ‘Longings’ responds to this idea and I’m flattered that it has been included alongside such great company.

Edited by Laura Fyfe and Chris Powici with cover and graphic design by Sandy Winterbottom, you can read Edens over at Paperboats Writers

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

Nature’s Voice

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I’m very proud to have co-edited Issue 6 of the Paperboats Writers E-Zine alongside Alex Nye.

The issue incudes such a great range of thought-provoking writing by a diverse group of wonderful writers, all responding to the issue theme of ‘Nature’s Voice’ in inspiring and imaginative ways. 

In poetry and prose, our contributors bear witness to the vulnerability of birds and other animals; the human impacts on climate and environment; hear the imagined song of trees; give voice to glaciers and storms, mosses and lichen. We learn of grass-roots efforts to respond to the threat of extinction, and we recognise the need to pause and to listen, to take note and act before it is too late.

We are particularly delighted to feature specially commissioned work by poet, artist and curator, Madhu Raghavendra, who was awarded the Charles Wallace Writing Fellowship at Stirling University in 2024.His opening poem ‘Orbit’ sets the scene and encapsulates the themes of this issue perfectly.

Please do grab a cuppa and enjoy a great read by going to the link below.

Nature’s Voice

Tree Talk

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Looking forward to giving an online talk and reading from my essay ‘elm is me and I am elm’ at Plymouth State University this Friday – part of the Museum of the White Mountains Tree Talk series.

‘elm is me and I am elm’ was published in Issue 5 of the Paperboats Writers E-Zine and explores our deeply entwined relationship with nature through a personal exploration of a local area of ancient woodland, the story of the wych-elm, and recent thinking in anthropology and ecology.

Join me on Friday 17th November for a human-nature entanglement.

Details here.

Nature’s Voice

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I’m proud to be co-editing the next issue of the Paperboats Writers e-zine with author Alex Nye, on the theme of Nature’s Voice.

The zine has featured some fantastic writers over each of the five issues that precede this one – both long-established, well known writers and emerging talent, and we hope to be able to continue to bring this diverse range of voices with our call to speak from the perspective of the more-than-human world at this time of climate and ecological breakdown.

Keep a look out for Issue 6, due out in late autumn 2025. In the meantime, you can catch up on each of the other five, fantastic issues, with the link below.

Paperboats Zine.