Orkney
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How readings can creep up on you! It’s only a few days until this month’s Shore Poets, where I’ll be reading alongside Colin Will and Julie Sheridan, with music provided by blues/folk/fingerpicking guitarist Callum More. I’m stepping down from the group after June, so this will be my last appearance as a Shore poet. It
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When Christine De Luca, Diana Hendry (with her partner the poet and publisher Hamish Whyte) and I touched down on a overcast but none too windy Orkney a week past Thursday, we were met very warmly by Pam Beasant, whose brainchild our visit was. While Christine sorted out her hire car, Pam drove Diana, Hamish
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Got back from Orkney yesterday after a fantastic few days. I’ll blog about it in something approaching detail at some point soon. There will be pictures, though not too many. Now, unfortunately, I ought to go and wash some dishes.
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Well, it was a couple of hours ago, but I got over the anxiety and packed. Off to Orkney tomorrow with fellow Shore Poets. It’s just possible there might be an opportunity to blog in situ, but I expect I’ll write something about it on my return.
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Things are coming together for the Orkney trip. Besides the reading with Christine De Luca and local Orkney writers, I’ll be leading a workshop for an S1 class (non-Scots read 12-year-olds) at Kirkwall Grammar School on the Friday morning (an 8.50 start–gulp!). Should be fun, although the last time I was in an S1 class
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The visit to Orkney with the Shore Poets exchange in October is beginning to shape up. It looks like it will involve one reading–on Saturday 13th along with Christine De Luca and local writers in the Pier Arts Centre, Stromness–and at least one school visit the previous day. There might be other visits to schools
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The next reading I have in the diary at the moment isn’t until October, but it’s one I’m particularly looking forward to. Pam Beasant, the first George Mackay Brown writing fellow, contacted Shore Poets convener, Christine De Luca early this year enquiring whether we would be interested in an exchange with some Orkney poets. We
Amy Jo Philip 