This is the Friday night session of the Callander Poetry Weekend, where, thanks to the herculaean efforts of Sheila Wakefield and Kevin Cadwallender of Red Squirrell Press,
Wherever We Live Now emerged into the real world.

I always knew that poets were a kind and generous lot, but I was overwhelmed by the warmth of the reception it received. You know who you are – thank you to all of you who listened to me worry, enjoyed my happy moment, made me feel that it is indeed a big thing to have a book out – not to mention those who bought it and asked for signatures!

Also a very special thank you to Sally and Ian for giving us the space in their weekend! Sally was the first editor who ever published me, and the first to allow me to read at one of her events. I bet half of Scottish poets could say the same – we are all in her debt.

There were other books launched this weekend, too:

Anne Connolly’s Love in a Mist also published by Red Squirrel

Ian Blakes’ Remembering Falstaff and Others published by Sally and Ian King’s firm Die-hard Poetry

Fred Beake’s The Old Outlaw published by Shoestring press

and Deborah Tyler-Bennet’s Revudeville
published by King’s England Press, and her chapbook Mitton…Dyer…Sweet Billy Gibson which is to come from Nine Arches Press

Yes, I did buy them and Marion Macready’s Vintage Sea (Calderwood Press) as well as pamphlets by kemal Houghton and Gordon mason. It was some weekend, and it’s a good job I’m going to Islay shortly so I can catch up with all these poets!

Please email me if you would like to buy a copy, or they will shortly be available via the Red Squirrel website.