Unusually for me I have a week of poetry events coming up... well two events anyway!
Sally Evans' Callander poetry weekend begins this Friday, I'm reading on the Saturday morning alongside Kemal Houghton, Robin Cairns, Juliana Greer, John Coutts, Katy Conrad, A. C. Clarke, Richie McCaffery and Morelle Smith. I'll be staying for the afternoon readings which will be from the Split Screen anthology and the Filmpoem project, so really looking forward to that. And then on the Monday night I'll be introducing Donald S Murray to read in Dunoon and, hopefully, have some music from a Gaelic singer. Hoping it'll be a good turn out. I've been running around town today putting up posters for it!
The photographer whose picture illustrates my poems in the recent Northwords Now has said that she would like to do a collaborative pamphlet witth my poems and her pictures. I really like the idea of this but actually getting it published is looking like it could be pretty tricky, neither of us being famous and photos being costly to print, which is a real shame.

I've just seen the proofs for my Northwords Now poems! They are publishing Tiger Tulips, A Vision of Sula Sgeir,  Orchid, Loch Long and four-section poem called Reflections. On the opposite page to my poems is a gorgeous photograph titled with a line from one of the poems. I love it and can't wait for it to be published!

I'm excited to be reading at the Callander Poetry Weekend in September. It really is one of the best Scottish poetry events and such a friendly atmosphere to read at. Here's the line-up of events and readers here.

Reading opportunity at The Fringe!

Anyone living near Edinburgh and looking for an opportunity to read their poems: - The Captain's Bar, snuggled between Old College and Bristo Square, is running a daily spoken word event from now until 21st August, check out the webpage here.

I'm pleased to be reading at the Callander Poetry Weekend which runs from Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th of September. It's a yearly festival hosted and organised by Sally Evans, editor of Poetry Scotland. Packed with poetry readings, book launch parties and interesting events such as book collating, sewing and bookbinding demonstrations, a talk on Byron in Albania by Morelle Smith and a presentation of Red Squirrel Press poets. Sounds like it's going to be a great weekend! Checkout the link to Sally's website from Poetry Scotland for more info.