The aftermath of Charlie Gracie reading at the MugStock Festival yesterday with Sally Evans, Morticia Crone and Elizabeth Rimmer was wonderful.Lots of music, great craic, very nice company and great food.
And, of course, beautiful poetry and prose in the amazing surroundings created in Mugdock Park by the festival. Thanks to all!
I’m looking forward to reading poetry at the inaugural MugStock Festival being held in Mugdock Country Park near Glasgow from 7-9 August.
See Charlie Gracie at MugStock reading live with Sally Evans, Elizabeth Rimmer, Morticia Crone and Anita Govan, all wonderful writers. Should be a blast.
Thanks to the organisers for putting on the reading in the appropriately named Charlie’s Theatre. Charlie was an elephant, by the way, and he lived there when Mugstock was a zoo back in the day.
West Moss-side ran out of copies of my poetry collection, Good Morning, last week as Forth Valley Open studios ended on Sunday. An emergency trip was required to save the day.
A wonderful range of painting, printing, jewellery-making and other art was on display and, as usual, the standard was beautifully high.
Kate Sankey runs West Moss-side as a mixed traditional organic farm and a high-quality venue for group meetings, seminars, educational visits, craft workshops, staff away days and training events.
You can stay there too, in one of Kate’s West Moss-side yurts. Check it out! It’s great!!
You can now buy my poetry collection, Good Morning, at the wonderful Four Masters Bookshop in the Diamond in Donegal Town.
The shop, run by a lovely woman called Joan, is a thriving place and I am proud that this is the first shop in Ireland to sell the book.
Glasgow bookshop Good Press is a space to support the promotion, production and sale of independent publications. On top of that, they run artists’ projects which rotate on a monthly basis, as well as residencies, external projects, talks and other events. It now sells Good Morning.
Good Press, founded by Matthew and Jess, is a place full of creative energy. You can find it at 5 St. Margaret’s Place, down near the old Briggat.
I’ve broken into England!! Good Morning is now stocked in the excellent Berrydin Books in Berwick. The shop sells second hand books, books (like mine) from independent publishers and art work. Roderick, who runs the shop, is an artist living in Northumberland and a lovely fella.
You can also get Good Morning in Haddington. Simon runs Kesley’s Bookshop. The place is great, with a magic wee coffee shop and some great poetry books for sale.
And … if that wasn’t enough … the brilliant wee diner The Blue Chair at the bottom of Glasgow’s High Street has a copy of Good Morning for customers to leaf through. In fact, you might find several other cafes about the country with copies of the book that you can read while eating your coffee and pancakes. By the way, Lorelle’s pancakes in The Blue Chair are the total berries!!
My poetry collection, Good Morning, published by diehard, 
has now been re-printed for the second time.
The 2015 version boasts a clever shift to blue, thanks, again to Clydeside Press
Very glad to see my wee post-referendum poem ungrasped in the latest Northwords Now.
It is a great magazine, edited by the poet Chris Powici and is always lots of interesting and good quality writing.
Check out Gutter 11. Lots of great writing, including my poem hospital tea break
You should think about subscribing (or submitting) to this excellent journal based in Scotland.
Enjoying my copy of the latest New Writing Scotland: Songs Of Other Places, which includes the first (draft) chapter of my ongoing novel Geraldine. What a pleasure to be in the company of some great writers.
In the last few days, I finished the first draft of Geraldine. The hard work of editing (again and again …) begins.