Exciting times are coming!

This is the first of some lovely opportunities I’ve been given in the last couple of weeks. Five local poets, Morticia Crone, Sally Evans, Anita Govan, Charlie Gracie and myself are going to be reading at the Mugstock Festival of Music and Merriment this Saturday, in Mugdock Country Park, at 5:30. The weather is looking good, the line-up is impressive – it includes Mr Boom, one of the major highlights of my children’s early years – and the Festival is run by one of the organisers of The Big Noise in Govanhill, so the credentials are impeccable.

Then on the 18th August I’ll be one of five poets reading poems  from the Poetry Map of Scotland  (you can find my poem here) as part of the StAnza Talks series at the Just Festival. There will be three talks in the series, on the 11th, 18th and 25th August, at 4:00 in St John’s Church, Princes St (Venue 127), Edinburgh, EH2 4BJ (Hall at St John’s), discussing the Festival itself, and the poets who have made it such an outstanding success over the last eighteen years.

And finally, it is time to announce the 2015 Callander Poetry Weekend. Once again, Sally Evans and her husband Ian King will throw open the doors of their bookshop on Main Street Callander to poets from all over Britain. As usual it is a full, rich and varied programme, which you can read in full on Sally’s website. But in particular I’d like to point out the Red Squirrel launches on the Friday night:

8-9 pm Red Squirrel Books launch books by:
Elizabeth Rimmer, Chris Powici, Anne Connolly,
pamphlet by Carolyn Richardson,
and Book of Sandie Craigie, read by friends

Once again the dauntless Sheila Wakefield has come up with a whole drey-full of lovely publications, including The Territory of Rain. I’ve just finished the proofs, and I’ve had a first look at the cover, and believe me, it is going to be gorgeous. I hope to see many of you at one or more of these events!