New short story in ‘Second World’ anthology
I'm thrilled to have a new short story called 'Mitropa' in this excellent anthology of commentary on the Second World in contemporary British writing from Bonn University Press. It's written ...
Exploring the ‘Second World’ in Halle
It was a great pleasure to read from The Leipzig Affair at the beautiful Literaturhaus in Halle on 18 September as part of a conference on the 'Second World' in ...
Reading in Halle
Very much looking forward to reading from The Leizpig Affair at the Literaturhaus in Halle on 18 September. I haven't been to Halle since 1986 so I'm expecting to see ...
A taster trip to the Shiants
Towards the end of May, I was able to make a day trip to the Shiant Isles from Scalpay with Eilean Glas Rib Tours. A planned four-day trip the previous ...
Grasp the thistle
Farewell London, hello Edinburgh has been a persistent refrain in the UK finance sector since the Brexit vote. Facing the loss of their European passport, London-based firms are looking to ...
Fashionable resistance: “I don’t wear their clothes”
Sometimes fictional characters are not fictional at all. They are clearly based on someone real. Even properly fictional characters usually have some element of a real person in them. The ...
The lure of Shakespeare Street
A newspaper article about portraits of abandoned buildings in Leipzig prompted me to unearth some photos I took on Leipzig’s Shakespearestraße when I was studying at the Karl Marx University ...
Selfie is as selfie does
So selfie is Oxford Dictionaries' word of the year, having, in the view of the esteemed lexographers, evolved into a mainstream term for self-portrait. Indeed. Only the other week in ...
St Kilda: of cleits and clichés
While out walking near Huisnis on the Isle of Harris on a particularly clear day last summer, my husband Pete and I caught sight of St Kilda – a mesmerising ...