So I've had my first meeting with the lovely folk at the Scottish Book Trust. They took a mug shot for the website... :)

I received my cheque of £2000 and was terrified of losing it all the way home. I confess the first thing I bought was a kindle having been sold on the idea since Israel where I was the only person in the airports lugging around a bag of books to read and everyone else had a dainty little e-reader. Since, I've barely put it down. It's like having access to an instant university library in my home, so many free books and books for a pittance. I am loving reading through Virginia Woolf's diaries at the moment, I been wanting to read them for years. 

The plan is to set me up with a mentor for a series of meetings over the next year. I'll be meeting up with some people from the Scottish Poetry Library next month to talk about what I'm hoping to get out of the mentoring so they can find a suitable mentor. I'm looking for someone who will challange me in my writing, give me critical feedback and hopefully help open new directions for my writing. Since the point of the money is to 'further my writing', I'm thinking of using the rest of it to go back out to Israel for a week or so myself this year and spend the time solely in the old city in Jerusalem writing. 

Other good news is that someone has requested to use a poem of mine in a tree poetry anthology, look forward to seeing that!

It's been a year of the most unexpected ups and downs!

I wish you all a wonderful, peaceful Christmas.