I had the pleasure of travelling to Stornoway on a very cold but sunny day in February 2019. Once there I was made very welcome by Euan at the museum and Rhoda from the Islands Book Trust.

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I spoke about Mary MacPherson, the subject of ‘Love and Music Will Endure’ and the next day I saw the famous Lewis chessmen and the very moving exhibition about the Iolaire disaster of 1919 when two hundred returning sailors were drowned in sight of the shore. 

The fern design is Victorian and was found underneath layers of paint when the breakfast room was renovated.

I enjoyed a magical weekend at the very friendly Book Festival at Tarbert, Loch Fynne, one of the less well known haunts of the miniature Asian elephant. I was involved in  the ‘Saturday with the Stevensons’ event with Bella Bathurst, the lighthouse expert and Joseph Farrell who has recently written about Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa.

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I greatly enjoyed taking part in the celebrations for Robert Louis Stevenson’s birthday in Edinburgh, November 2018. I spoke about how he inspired my writing at the Writers’ Museum. It’s a wonderful old building with narrow spiral staircases. The bottom floor is dedicated to RLS while the other floors are for Sir Walter Scott and Bobbie Burns.

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Just to let you know that I’ve recently created a new home for a series of short films I’ll be working on. The first one is already on there. Watch it here.

I spoke about ‘No Safe Anchorage’ at the Penzance Literary Festival in early July after travelling by train from the North-western Celtic fringe to its counterpart in the far South- West.

 

The beautiful coastline reminded me of the Highlands.

 

On the way down I signed copies of my book at the Waterstones branch in Princes Street, Edinburgh.

Signing copies of ‘No Safe Anchorage’ at Waterstones in Oban on a cold but sunny June day.

I was delighted to talk about ‘No Safe Anchorage’ at a meeting of Skye U3A at the end of May. There were many interesting questions and comments from the audience despite it being a very hot day. It was a complete contrast to when I spoke about my first book, ‘Love and Music Will Endure’ on a day of storms and torrential rain. The joys of living in a place with changeable extremes of weather!

In April I spent an enjoyable evening as part of a panel in Inverness, hosted by HighlandLIT. We discussed

‘Women Writers in the  Highlands’.

We were a varied group, both in age and as writers. Helen Forbes and Margaret Kirk are both accomplished writers of crime thrillers set in Inverness, Morven-May MacCallum has written a moving account of a teenager suffering from the aftermath of Lyme’s disease and my speciality is historical novels set in the Highlands. However we have Highland ancestry in common and Highland women are renowned for their toughness and resilience!

We covered a range of subjects, including how male authors expect praise for portraying “strong women”. Does this imply that strong women are unusual and therefore most  women are weak?

Also debated was the issue of why Highland stereotypes are still so popular, especially the kilted, brooding Jacobite hero (red-haired of course).

There were plenty of lively observations from the audience which contributed to a memorable evening.

I enjoyed a lively discussion with the Advanced Higher Literature students in February about getting ideas for writing historical fiction. Their course includes producing several pieces of their own creative writing.

 

 

 

The March edition of ‘Scottish Islands Explorer’ features the islands of Rona and Raasay three times, among lots of other interesting features. See page 6 for a brief review of ‘No Safe Anchorage’. If you read that it will give you the answer to clue 27 Across on the crossword on page 49.