PS

PoetS' PortraitS

This page includes personal details on those contributors to the broadsheet - Poetry Scotland - who would like their details (brief biographies, thumbnail photos, email or other contact details etc). It's a purely optional service to the poets whose work makes the broadsheet the exciting contemporary publication which it is. Anyone who wants to participate is asked to send details to the Webmaster.

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Introducing the POETRY SCOTLAND LAUREATES

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W XYZ

A

KEITH ARMSTRONG
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he has worked as a community worker, poet and publisher Keith Armstrong is coordinator of the Northern Voices creative writing and community publishing project which specialises in recording the experiences of people in the North East of England. He has recently compiled and edited books on the Durham Miners' Gala and on the former mining communities of County Durham. He is studying for a PhD on the work of Newcastle writer Jack Common at the University of Durham where he received a Masters Degree in 1998 for his studies on regional culture in the North East of England. He was Year of the Artist 2000 poet-in-residence at Hexham Races. His poetry has been extensively published in magazines such as Poetry Review, Other Poetry, Iron, The Poetry Business, and Poetry Scotland, as well as in the collections The Jingling Geordie, Dreaming North and Pains of Class, on cassette, LP & CD, and on radio & TV.
He has performed his poetry on several occasions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and at Literature Festivals in Cardiff, Cheltenham, Durham, Lancaster, and throughout the land. He has also toured the former Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Iceland (incuding readings during the Cod War), Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, and The Netherlands. He often works with folk-musicians from North East England, including Jez Lowe, Marie Little, and George Welch, and he has written the lyrics for an album by folk-rock band 'The Whisky Priests', with whom he has toured extensively in The Netherlands.He has also visited the European Parliament in Strasbourg to perform his poetry with musicians Pete Challoner and Ian Carr. Though a regionalist inspired by the landscape of his birth, he is very much a European and his work is much influenced by writers such as Hölderlin, Hesse, Brecht, Baudelaire, Prevert, Esenin, and Mayakovsky. In 2002, he visited New York City to give readings with the aid of a further Northern Arts Award.

B

Ken Barclay (b, Edinburgh 1940) In the autumn of V.E. year I began my schooling at the Royal High School. I was a driven achiever from the outset, and ended with a choice of two scholarships - one to Edinburgh University and one to St Andrews. I opted for the latter because of the golf (vide 'Polyphemus on the Old Course' PS 20) and because the boy I was in love with had made the same choice. He was regrettably heterosexual, but that makes no difference to being in love. All my subsequent intense and lengthy relationships fell into the mould of that first one, as if viewed in a gradually dimming mirror (vide 'The Ghosts of Picnics Past' in a PS issue yet to be determined by our Editor.) Proceeding to Pembroke College, Oxford, to sit at the feet of Ryle, Anscombe et al, I soon got into a fankle with my thesis on Metaphor. I shouldnt have been writing about it, but doing it. They packed me off to Aarhus University in Denmark, where I acquired the language and translated a couple of crime novels and an autobiography of a Danish choreographer, Hans Beck. I then fetched up in London and the Guildhall School of Music. At last I had changed horses and was riding the favourite. This new beast galloped over many piano keyboards between 1967 and the mid 90's, when it had to be put out to grass because of motorway exhaustion and creaking fetlocks. So I dismounted and immediately launched into the daunting task of re-working the many poems I had written ever since my teens. E-mail here

RUTH BIDGOOD was born in 1922 of a North Welsh father (who lived in South Wales) and an English mother; was brought up in South Wales; and has lived for many years in Mid-Wales. She's been told her motto should be (in translation) 'In me Wales is one'! She's currently working on her 9th book of poems. She writes: 'I think I may be the only humanoid still using a typewriter. Sometimes I have recourse to sons online, one of whom is near to me'.

From ANGELA BLACKLOCK-BROWN: I was born and brought up in Dumfries and Galloway. My father studied art and my grandfather, whom I never knew, was a music hall artist with Harry Lauder. When I was a child my grandmother told me that grandpa Jack wrote a lot of Harry Lauder's songs for him, so perhaps that gift is passed on through the generations. My country upbringing still has a great influence on my writing since a lot of my poems are about nature. When I was about thirteen I started to write seriously and had articles published. My poetry was of the very traditional type which I discarded at one point, but have now revisited this early work. As a teenager 1 enjoyed travel and adventure. Once I had finished school I moved to Edinburgh to study languages and went into teaching. Through teaching I met a group of colleagues with whom I went climbing, sailing and skiing. All these activities are reflected in my writing as well as my travels around the world. For a long time I did no creative writing until I won a poetry competition which Tessa Ransford adjudicated. She invited me to join the School of Poets where I began to develop my poetry again. I now combine part-time work in the Scottish Poetry Library with the part-time M.Phil course in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow

IAN BLAKE writes: Ban, Cam & Dubh, three black & white cats, dumped by their mother on what was until then his doorstep, graciously permit Ian Blake to share a house looking out to the islands from Aultgrishan - which he took as the title of his 1999 diehard collection. A previous winner of the Petra Kenney and the Neil Gunn memorial competitions, much of his poetry reflects the last vestiges of traditional crofting life in the western highlands and islands as it is finally suppressed under insensitive neglect by distant politicians, who allow petrol here to cost 10p per litre than anywhere else in Britain, and the banal Telly vision of Monarch of the Glen and Hamish Macbeth. Restraining, with difficulty, an unfortunate facility for light verse (an Elegy for Desperate Dan, knocked the peach off its pedestal and nursey-ryhmed Mr Blair most disrespectfully) his new collection Waiting for Ginger Rogers at Loch Oich will include some of the poems which have appeared in NorthWords & Poetry Scotland.

GWYNETH BOX is an English poet who lives in Madrid. She runs http://www.patchword.com which is a site giving masses of info on poetry competitions. Gwyneth has visited Scotland for the Scottish Open Poetry Competition at Irvine on several occasions.

GEORGE MACKAY BROWN 1921-1996
George was born in Stromness, Orkney and lived there all his life with the exception of his years in Edinburgh, at college and university. His writings spanned almost 60 years and ranged from essays and local journalism to a vast body of poetry, short stories, novels and plays. Though firmly based in the life of Orkney, his words are far from parochial and often inspirational. He shines light on the mysteries of life and death, and on the seeking, struggle and joys occurring in between. He celebrates landscape and legend, and created more than a few myths for our time in his short stories.
Seamus Heaney wrote: 'he transforms everything by passing it through the eye of the needle of Orkney.' He wove threads into a tapestry anyone can view and come away feeling the richer for it.
He was an important influence on the composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies who set more than 30 of his pieces to music. They collaborated on an opera The Martyrdom of St Magnus which in 1977 opened the first St Magnus Festival in Orkney, a festival of music, poetry and drama initiated by Maxwell Davies, George and others. It is now a popular event in the international arts calendar.
George received many literary awards in his lifetime and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994 for his novel Beside the Ocean of Time. Almost 20 of his books are still in print, including his autobiography and some posthumous collections sensitively put together by his literary executors.
More information, photographs, extracts from his work at www.georgemackaybrown.co.uk

C

IDRIS CAFFREY was born in the market town of Rhayader in Mid-Wales. Left Wales to find work in England at the age of twenty one and settled in Tamworth, Staffordshire where he has remained ever since.Married with four children.Started writing poetry relatively late in life.Four collections - "Pacing Backwards" and "Pathways" were published in 1996 and 1997 by Feather Books of Shrewsbury; "Other Places" by Original Plus Press came out in 1998 and "Warm Rain" published by Kite Books, was published in 2001.Latest collection "Departures and Returns" is due out by Christmas.

MAOILIS M. CAIMBEUL (Myles M. Campbell), born in Staffin in 1944, did not learn to write Gaelic until 1964. A graduate of Edinburgh University, he teaches at Gairloch High School. His poetry is internationally acclaimed, widely published, and represented (pp 598-617) in An Tuil, Ronald I.M.Black's definitive and widely acclaimed Anthology of 20th Century Scottish Gaelic Verse (with English translations) originally published in 1999 & reprinted 2002 by Polygon (now Birlinn).

SUSAN CASTILLO is a beleaguered and bespectacled academic who is the first female Head of English Literature in Glasgow University's 550-year history. This photograph, taken in 1999, is the only decent one ever taken of her. Born in the American South, she lived in Portugal for many years and came to Scotland in 1996. She's published poetry and fiction in Britain, the US, Portugal and Luxembourg.

Mercedes Clarasó - Catalan Glaswegian, now living near Edinburgh. Has lived and taught in St Andrews. Several novels and one collection of short stories published. At present writing mainly poetry, but also working on another novel.
Addicted to cats, music, languages and places.

STEWART CONN was born in Glasgow and brought up in Ayrshire, and has lived in Edinburgh for 25 years. He was recently inaugurated as the capital's poet laureate under the title "the Edinburgh makar".
Latest publications:
"Stolen Light: selected poems" (Bloodaxe), "Distances: a personal evocation of people and places" (SCP), "L'Anima del Teixidor" (Proa , Barcelona), and a 1-man play "Hugh Miller" (diehard).
He is president of Shore Poets, a fellow of the RSAMD and a Knight of Mark Twain. Maintains equilibrium by hill-walking and trout-fishing.

D

ROBERT DAVIDSON is the author of two collections The Bird & The Monkey and Total Immersion, and editor of an anthology, After The Watergaw. His lyric suite Centring On A Woman's Voice was put to music by seven different composers and performed at Highland Festival 2001. His book length sequence Columba was published in its entirety by Poetry Scotland, performed as a reading on Moray Firth Radio, and performed as a drama at the Cromarty Book Festival in 2002. The oratorio Dunbeath Water with his libretto scored and arranged by composer William Gilmour was perfomed at Highland Festival 2003. A regular contributor to Poetry Scotland, he is the Editor of The Sandstone Review. He can be contacted here.

CHRISTINE DE LUCA writes in both English and Shetlandic (a blend of old Scots and Norn). A third collection, Plain Song, was published in 2002. This followsVoes & Sounds and Wast wi da Valkyries, for each of which she won the Shetland Literary Prize. Her work has also appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies. Readings have taken her to Helsinki and Milan. More recently she has worked both with translators and with artists and musicians.

Simona-Grazia Dima is a Bucharest-based poet, essayist, literary critic and translator. Before moving to the capital of Romania in 2000, she lived in her native town Timişoara, the city of the Romanian revolution and the most Western and cosmopolitan of all Romanian cities. This background strongly contributed to the poet’s multicultural creed as well as to her wide range of interests and concerns. (Oriental thought, spirituality generally, Sufi poetry and thinking, Chinese and European astrology, Indian thought, Islam’s saints and their poetry, painting etc.) She is an Honours graduate in English and Romanian languages and literatures from the University of Timişoara, but has always believed that poetry should have little in common with social ambitions. Hence, she worked as a teacher, a translator, a librarian, an editor, a museographer, thus gathering precious information about various social media and studying naked human nature. At the present moment she is an editor in the Romanian Academy in Bucharest. She is a constant contributor to the main Romanian literary reviews. Her poetry has also been translated in English, French, Czech, German and Macedoromanian. She has published 12 books, out of which 9 poetry collections, a translation from English (Arthur Osborne’s Sri Ramana Maharshi and the Self-Knowledge Path), and 2 books of critical essays. For her poetry collection Tigers’ Confessor, 1998, she was awarded the Prize of the Romanian Writers’ Union, the Timisoara branch. Among the poets she has translated: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Sorley MacLean, Morelle Smith, Rody Gorman, Maoilios (Myles)Caimbeul (Campbell), Christopher (Crìsdean)Whyte, Meg Bateman, Aonghas MacNeacail, Ruaraidh Mac Thòmais (Derick Thomson), Aonghas Phadraig Caimbeul (Angus Peter Campbell), Dòmhnall (Donald) MacAmlaigh (MacAulay), Kevin (Caoimhin) MacNeil (MacNèil). As the secretary of the Romanian PEN-Club, and as a poet too, she has represented Romania in European countries such as: Germany, Italy, France, Hungary, Slovakia, the Republic of Macedonia etc.

COLIN DONATI sends this photo of himself with the recently unveiled Robert Fergusson statue at Canongate Church.

E

SALLY EVANS: Apart from editing the Poetry Scotland broadsheet, Sally has
published many poems in magazines and increasingly webzines, and three
books: Millennial, diehard 1995, Looking for Scotland, Salzburg 1996, and
Bewick Walks to Scotland, illustrated with Thomas Bewick woodcuts, Arrowhead
2004. Forthcoming, a new Arrowhead book due in 2006, and from diehard, The
Bees, a satirical poem with full page line drawings by Reinhard Behrens.
Sally runs Kings Bookshop Callander with publisher/bookbinder husband Ian W
King. She was awarded the first Ted Slade Award for service to poetry by the
Poetry Kit website in 2005.

F

Rab Fulton was dragged kicking and screaming from Edinburgh in 1999 by a
gorgeous babe who forced him to live in Ireland and change his name to Rab
Swannock Fulton. Rab would like to feel guilty about this but is too busy
enjoying himself. He is still writing novels, shorts stories, poems, making
court appearances and pleading not guilty to all charges. The arts office of
the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUI,G) has now set up a website
where his work can be freely accessed. The website can be read at
http://frink.nuigalway.ie/~rab
Rab would like to get back in touch with writers in Scotland, and would like
to come over some time to meet up, do readings etc. He can be contacted at:
dubh@hotmail.com

ROBIN FULTON lives in Norway. He is the author of many books of poems.

G

Sam Gilliland born 1939 in an Ayrshire village, a widely published poet and editor with work appearing in many magazines and anthologies both in the UK and abroad, has also taken part in various radio broadcasts. An interest in Iberian literature led to the translation into Scots of selected verse from the poetry of the Portuguese poet Mário de Sá-Carneiro. Founder in 1978 of The Ayrshire Writers & Artists Society, which became the umbrella for The Scottish International Open Poetry Competition inaugurated by the Scottish poet Henry Mair, has spent twenty eight years as co-organizer and administrator of the above competition giving a voice and a platform to many thousands of poets who might not otherwise have been heard. Now domiciled in Dumfries and Galloway is currently compiling a fourth collection of verse.

RODY GORMAN Gaelic and English poet, Rody comes from Ireland and now lives with his family at Isle Ornsay near Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on Skye. He also writes multi-language poems and has come up with Manx haiku for PS19. His new 'translationgraph' or translation puddle is a wonderful option; used in PS19(p) and also in the recent NorthWords it allows for additional words if needed, while it is not too easy to read off. Love it ! - but what would happen if other writers did that? It would sound like Rody Gorman! His diehard all-Gaelic CUIS GHAOIL is due to be followed by other all-Gaelic books by both Rody and other writers.

DOUGLAS W GRAY is 47 years old and lives in Cove Bay, Aberdeen. He is a founder member of the Dead Good Poets, a ‘reading for charity’ poetry group, who meet on the last Thursday of each month at Books and Beans in Aberdeen; the programme includes guest readers and open mic. He is the former editor of poetry magazines Storm and Spume, and is published widely in the small press circuit. Awards include: second prize in the Northwords Open Poetry Competiton 1998, first prize in the Feile Filiochta Open Poetry Competiton and the Irish Times Perpetual Trophy 2001, second placed in the Scottish International Poetry Competition 2003, and winner of the Ayr 800 Open Poetry Competition 2005. A forthcoming publication Flesh, Place and other Colours is due out in spring 2006.

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DAN HEALY. Born in 1972 in Wales. Works and lives as a bookseller in Cambridge. Has appeared in a variety of magazines such as Anon, Borderlines, Envoi, HQ, The Journal, Other Poetry, Seam and The Railto. Also the poetry anthology 'Only Connect' published by Cinnamon Press in December 07. First collection 'Winter Lines' published by Cinnamon Press in April 08. email dan.healy@ntlworld.com website www.freewebs.com/danielhealy

POL HODGES. Kernewek is the Cornish language, and Pol Hodges one of its chief apostles. He¹s a popular performance poet too. His book is MOWTH ON UN LIKE DOLCOATH SHAFT, Lodenek Press, 1997, 0946143 27 7, £4.95 His poems in PS19 translate:

AN VILIENN (THE PEBBLE)
She is heavy as tin,
like the egg so smooth,
marked as the planet Jupiter
with its weather belts.
For this mini beach moon,
alas there is not an orbit.
Lost will be this stone
­ a final parabola ­
to finish with a Oplonk in the Spey.

BARABERR (SHORTBREAD)
Edinburgh Castle stands
on Scottish shortbread in
this enormous mountain
which chokes so well
future Scottish eruptions.
Stuck in the great throat
but still spewing out a million cakes and loaves,
wrapped in a red tartan
and all sold in the first
two hundred yards of the Royal Mile.

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VIVIEN JONES lives in Powfoot on the north Solway coast. After a late start at

K

ALTER KARER
Lives in Paris. The selections from PIECES FUGITIVES in PS19 (p3) were made by Morelle Smith.
Morelle writes: "When I looked at it again I realised it was an immense work, a bit like 'Parsifal' in
poetry, a kind of epic journey through the hells and heavens of earthly experience. So I picked a
few stanzas from near the beginning."

PAUL KEENAN
Paul Keenan was born in Armagh City in 1963 and graduated from St Patrick's
College, Maynooth, the Open University and the University of East Anglia. He
lectures and carries out research at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Trinity
College Dublin. As well as publishing a number of papers on disabilities, his
poetry has appeared in DeepSouth (New Zealand), Poetry Greece; Poetry Scotland;
Social Alternatives (Australia) and Blackwater (Ire).

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L

TONY LEWIS-JONES was born in Wales, and educated at Clifton and New College, Oxford.
He has been active on the Small Press scene for more years than he cares to remember,
and his poetry has been broadcast on radio and TV. He has held/holds a number of poetry-
related posts, including Poet-In-Residence at BBC Radio Bristol and at the Bristol Evening
Post, and has just published his eighth collection of poetry 'Lost Poems'. He is also the
editor of the e-zine Various Artists, email address: tonylj@firewater.fsworld.co.uk

RICHARD LIVERMORE
Born 1944 Adept at both rhyming and non rhyming poetry, though has gravitated
towards the former of late. Described by Jeremy Reed as a fine musical craftsman.
Has also stayed for a while with Peter Russell in Italy and worked as an English
teacher in Spain. 4 books published, Grendels Song, The Divine Joker, Meltdown
and Ganymede, plus many poems in magazines. Edits the new Chanticleer
Magazine, devoted to poetry and ideas.

ELEANOR LIVINGSTONE was born in 1957. Her family moved from Bathgate to Fife, where she
still lives. Nowadays she works part-time with a legal firm and part-time as a WEA tutor. She is
the Artistic Director of StAnza: Scotland's Poetry Festival. Her poems have appeared in
anthologies and magazines and she recently completed her first novel. Her first poetry collection -
The Last King of Fife - was published by Happenstance Press in 2005.
She's married with a teenage daughter.

KEITH LOBBAN was born, bred and raised in Aberdeen. After declining parents' invitation to
go to university on leaving school, joined Aberdeen City Police as a cadet. Went on to serve
for 30 years in that force - later amalgamated to become Grampian Police.
On retiring from the 'thin blue line' fancied becoming 'some sort of writer'. Had short stories
published in The People's Friend, My Weekly Scottish Memories, The Countryman and
magazines of that ilk before becoming a columnist on a regional, monthly magazine -
The Leopard-. -After a couple of years of trying to be funny, became a humorous columnist
on a local weekly newspaper - The Deeside Piper before becoming a journalist on its sister
paper - The Inverurie Herald
For all the wrong reasons I took to writing poetry! Basically as therapy to relieve the tedium
of making council meetings, rotary meetings and WRI meetings sound even remotely interesting!
From there a genuine interest in poetry took hold and since then I have had work published in a
variety of the usual arts and literary mags such as Acumen, Envoi, Poetry Scotland, Fire,
Northwords, Coffee House, Obsessed With Pipework, Vigil, Moodswing, Markings, Eildon Tree etc.

ROWENA M LOVE is based in the South West of Scotland. She has been President of Ayr Writers' Club and is still an extremely active member. Rowena is also on the committee of Writability, a Scottish charity which aims to bring able-bodied and disabled people together through the medium of writing. A French teacher when finances demand, Rowena juggles a number of writing projects. As well as speaking engagements, workshops, and article-writing, she is currently working on a biography of Wendy Wood (the Scottish patriot who died about 20 years ago). Despite - or perhaps because of - all the other things that she should be writing, Rowena often turns to poetry to escape. You can see more of her work at http://www.rowenamlove.co.uk . She has recently brought out her first collection of poetry entitled The Chameleon of Happiness ISBN 0-9547084-0-7. Find out more about it at www.makarpress.co.uk and visit her own website at www.rowenamlove.co.uk

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ANDREW MCNEIL has been widely published as a poet in Scots and English. He has a publication from Kettillonia and he is also a short story writer and novelist. He works as a primary school teacher in Fife, which he says is a great job.

JOHN McPARTLIN: lives in Edinburgh, has just won the Neil Gunn prize with a poem called Sheep Station (probably to be published in Northwords) and he is working on a series of Australian poems.

LEONA MICHIE was born in 1978 and educated at the University of Stirling and the University of Aberdeen.  She has had various jobs, including recruitment consultant, tour guide and tattie howker.  She lived for some time in Rome, and uses this to fool people into thinking she is well travelled and cultured.  Leona is at present working on a collection of poems, and hopes that one day, in the next forty years or so, this will be finished.  She lives in Aberdeen with her son.

LYN MOIR says "to write something about myself is more daunting than to stand in front of a roomful of strangers and talk about my sex life, my geriatric sex-life, as I do when reading poems from Me and Galileo. To myself I appear a non-person, apart from the streak of ego which we all have. My less personal poems (and the full collection, as yet untitled, should appear in Spring 2003) often deal with the former Eastern- (now reverted to its old status, I suppose, of Mittel-) Europe, where I have spent a lot of time over the past twenty years. Now, having returned to Scotland, and feeling in many ways as if I had never left, I find my subjects expanding to include sea-birds, quite a lot of them. And of course, more poems about 'Galileo'".

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RICHARD PRICE has two books from diehard: the paperback PERFUME AND PETROL FUMES, £4.90 and the new hardback FROSTED, MELTED £8.50 which contains mostly earlier poems. He is also an editor, of the former Southfields etc and now of Painted, Spoken. He works at the British Library in London.

PAULINE PRIOR-PITT has appeared in many literature festivals, Warwick, Swindon, Bewdley, Nottingham to name a few. She has also performed her poems as an after dinner speech all over the place and has entertained at numerous women's conferences. She has read her poems on Woman's Hour, Pick of the Week, Channel 4 and Central Television.
Her books, which are published by Spike Press, are "Waiting Women", Still Standing in the Plant Pot" and "Addresses & Dreams".
Since moving to live on the Island of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides seven years ago, Pauline has written "Storm Biscuits" a collection of poems about living on the island.
She has worked and performed with the Scottish Flute Trio on her specially commissioned poems called "Exposed Island".
At present she is working on a new collection called "Ironing with Sue Lawley", which she has been invited to launch at the Warwick Festival in July.

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Elizabeth M. Rimmer was born and educated in Liverpool, moving to Scotland in 1977, when she married Paul Rimmer, a Civil Engineer. Between 1977 and 1982 she lived in five houses and had two children; her third child was born in Stirling in 1986.

She moved to Stirling in 1982, where she took an M.Litt. at Stirling University in 1986, studying medieval romances. As well as writing, she has worked in the university chaplaincy, helped to run Stirling and District Youth Theatre and managed an allotment and herb garden.

Her poems have been published in Rain Dogs, Poetry Scotland, The Herald and Justice and Peace. Articles have appeared in The Chapter, and The Merton Journal. A short play, Mac the Sheepstealer, based on the Towneley Second Shepherds play was produced by SDYT in 2001.

Other interests include learning languages, folk music, and cooking, and environmental and global issues of justice and peace.

Gerard Rochford 's publications include Eating Eggs with Strangers, The Holy Family and Other Poems and Figures of Stone ,2009. (Koo Press) plus magazines in Britain and Canada . Anthologies include Erotica (Ascent Aspirations.Canada.2008) and Silver (Polygon - ed. Spence and Hutchison. 2009).

He is included in Janice Galloway's selection of Best 20 Scottish Poems of 2006, for the Scottish Poetry Library. A featured poet on Poets Against the War, a principal guest reader at Planet Earth, Victoria B.C. and at the launch of the Cromarty Film festival, 2008.

His next book will be Al Fresco (published by  Embers Handpress -  Roy and Eve Watkins editions). Also planned: Of Love and Water, a collaboration with the Canadian artist David Ladmore.

'I was born in England of Irish and Yorkshire stock, have lived in Hong Kong but spent most of my life in Scotland where the best footballers leave and the best poets stay. It is good to be near them. I have many children and grandchildren who give me great joy. I write mostly about intimate human relationships, wildlife and occasionally politics. Perhaps they are all one.'

S

GEOFF SAWERS lives in Swansea. His long poem The Postcard, PS19, is also available on tape.

MARC SHERLAND - is continually surprised to wake up on planet Earth, in this universe. He was born on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent but removed to Scotland aged two. He writes both poetry and prose and has poems in 'Nomad 11', 'Earthlove' magazine, 'Something to Say' and many other local magazines. He enjoys writing and performing and is a regular contributor to the 'Words and Music' event at Sammy Dows in Glasgow, but has his eyes fixed on the stars, especially the Pleiades as he is a founder member of the Scottish Pleiadian Poets, a performance group. He is also the 2006/07 Chairperson of the Federation of Writers ( Scotland). The promotion of the written and spoken word is his credo, why not join him somewhere on this planet?

T

Sue Tordoff was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire in 1946, but has since lived in various counties of England and Scotland, currently living in West Sussex. She worked as a secretary and audit clerk until she re-trained in her early 30’s as a counsellor and healer. After twenty years working in the private and public sectors, Sue returned to her first love, writing. She has been honing the craft ever since, the learning curve never ends and that is the joy of it.

While living in Cumbria, Sue regularly wrote and read her own work on BBC regional radio, and also wrote booklets of short stories for charities. Her poetry has appeared in small presses and anthologies; she has also published articles on personal development and aspects of writing in magazines, plus poetry and theatre reviews for websites and in newspapers. Nowadays she writes mostly poetry.

In 1996 she visited Orkney for the first time and fell in love with the work of George Mackay Brown. At the time, there was little on the web about him, so she created the website www.georgemackaybrown.co.uk which is still growing.

In January 2000, Sue created and edited Write-Away! an online poetry magazine which has since started a new incarnation under the name www.wah.org.uk, a features and poetry ezine. One of three editors, Sue is responsible for the Haiku Feature at Wah!

Dr DEBORAH TYLER-BENNETT has been a prizewinner several times in the Scottish International Open Poetry Competition, and now regularly appears in Poetry Scotland as well as many other magazines. She edits the magazine The Coffee House from Leicestershire.

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DOUGLAS WATT is an historical researcher who lives in Linlithgow with his wife and three children.
He writes poetry in English and Scots and is working on a novel set in the seventeenth century.

MAUREEN WELDON is Irish, now lives in North Wales near Chester, UK.
An ex professional ballet dancer, she danced with Irish Theatre Ballet.
Later ran her own ballet school in Chester.  She has been writing poetry for
the past eighteen years. Her poems have been widely published, in various
journals and Small Press magazines. Including: Poetry Scotland, Roundyhouse,
Poetry Cornwall, Poetry Monthly, Other Poetry, Purple Patch,  Fire,
Reflections, The Woman Writer,  Vsesvit Ukraine, and others. Also on-line
poetry magazines, Open Mouse -Poetry Scotland, Poetry Kit, Snakeskin, Ink
Sweat  & Tears.

Maureen writes: This year I won 2nd Prize for the POETRY POWER 2008 Flintshire, North Wales Poetry
Competition. In August 2008 my poetry collection  'Breakfast At Kilumney'  was published
by Poetry Monthly Press.

Recent publications, Crannog magazine, Ireland.  Poetry Scotland.  The Sons
Of Camus Writers International Journal.

ONYA WICK, After performing at the Callander Weekend, Poetry Scotland,
Poetry Festival, we performed at the Zimmercom Poetry Convention, then at
Chester University 19th September '08. We are currently waiting
confirmation for a Liverpool performance.

JAYNE WILDING writes: I was born in Stafford in England. My family moved to
Glasgow when I was 6 years old. I later moved through to Edinburgh when I was
17 years old to study Hispanic Studies and Psychology at Edinburgh University.

As a full-time writer and poet I have been leading writing workshops in arts centres,
community centres and 'out in the elements'. I have also been involved with the Renga
Platform events, both as a participant and working as a Master. I have also taught
Creative Writing for organizations like Artlink and Survivor's Poetry Scotland. I can't
give you an exact date of when I began writing poetry, but probably around the early
1990's. I'm inspired by travel, the natural world, wild places and the connection
between mind and body. I am currently living in the foothills of the French Pyrenees.

Details of Jayne's books - In the Moon's Pantry - on the diehard page
and in 2008 sky blue notebook from the Pyrenees, from Calder Wood Press.

Photo by David Thery

COLIN WILL, a diehard author, lives in Dunbar. Much (but by no means all) of his poetry is influenced by the natural world and the insights which his scientific training brings to it. Former Chair of the Scottish Poetry Library Board. Chairman of the Board of Trustees of StAnza. Leader of Dunbar Writers group. Widely published in magazines and anthologies, and in collections listed on the diehard page. His fourth collection - Sushi & Chips - was published by diehard in 2006. Experienced workshop leader. Poet Partner to Moray 2008-9. Photographer. Yr Webmaster. A shy and sensitive creature. Available for Santa Claus bookings (has own beard and yo-ho). Does talks on modern Scottish poets under the title - The Heirs of Burns, schools workshops (has Disclosure Cert). Link to Homepage | Link to Blog

MERRYN WILLIAMS lives in Bedfordshire. She's the author of books on Wilfred Owen and Margaret Oliphant, and a poetry book THE LATIN MASTER'S STORY. She also wrote THE CHALET GIRLS GROW UP, a modern, outspoken and feminist story which shook up the Chalet School world, and which your editor thoroughly enjoyed. She edits the Wilfred Owen Newsletter and the poetry magazine The Interpreter's House.

JULIET WILSON was born in Manchester. She moved to Edinburgh to study Botany and, apart from two years in Malawi, has lived there ever since, working for a number of Scottish charities. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Scotland, Iota, Rain Dog, Envoi, The Journal and elsewhere. Her pamphlet 'Bougainvillea Dancing' (published August 2002) raised £200 for charities working in Malawi. She is a regular reviewer for New Hope International On-line and occasionally tutors creative writing. She has performed her poetry at various venues in Edinburgh, including Kin, Silencio, the Meadows Festival 2004/05 and Foakies / Songs for Change Poetry Against the G8. The photo was taken at Meadows Festival 2005. Her website address is:
http://Juliet.M.Wilson.googlepages.com

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Page last updated: June 2, 2009

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