An Afternoon of Fiction, Poetry and Performance
Saturday 6 July, 2019. 1 – 5 p.m. An afternoon of fiction, poetry and performance in Finn’s Place. Fun, creating and ‘doing your own thing’ but performance is optional. With Linda Jackson. £15/£10 Finn’s Place, 167 Ledard Rd, Glasgow G42 9QU
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Tuesday, June 18, 2019 | Filed under: Books, Talks, Poetry Events, Classes and Workshops, Writing
An Evening with Multi Award winning author Robin Lloyd-Jones
Hosted by the Helensburgh Library and the Mackintosh Group review by Mary Irvine There was a full house at the Helensburgh Library on Wednesday, 29th May, 2019 for ‘An Evening with Robin Lloyd-Jones’. A brief introduction and Robin took over. He began by reading the very first piece he had had published, which was in […]
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Monday, June 3, 2019 | Filed under: Book and Event Reviews, Mary Irvine: Writer and Philhellene
Dan Richards Booked! Festival 2019 review Mary Irvine
Dan Richards ‘Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the World’ Balloch Library Sunday 19th May 2019 This was my favourite event of this year’s festival. The great intrepid British explorer, risking life and limb to go where no man has gone before (or rarely, in this case) is not of a bygone age. […]
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Wednesday, May 29, 2019 | Filed under: Book and Event Reviews, Books, Talks, Poetry Events, Mary Irvine: Writer and Philhellene
Mary Irvine review: Polly Clarke – the tiger lady! Booked! Festival
Booked! Festival Alexandria Library Friday, 17th May, 2019 Polly Clarke – the tiger lady! Polly Clarke, born in Toronto, now domiciled in Helensburgh and London (where she does her writing on a houseboat) sashayed down the aisle in a stunning, single-tiger print dress which she later confided had been discovered on the Internet – a […]
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Saturday, May 25, 2019 | Filed under: Book and Event Reviews, Books, Talks, Poetry Events
Kerry Hudson’s Lowborn Tour, The Mitchell review Pat Byrne
Lowborn – Poverty in Britain Today It really is absolutely hellish: ‘We live in the world’s sixth-richest economy but one-fifth of us live in poverty’. Kerry Hudson. Kerry Hudson’s Lowborn Tour isn’t your usual book launch – her book ‘Lowborn – Poverty in Britain Today’, alongside tour events, aims to inform people about just what […]
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Wednesday, May 22, 2019 | Filed under: Book and Event Reviews, Books, Talks, Poetry Events
Richard Holloway ‘Waiting for the Last Bus’ review Mary Irvine
Tuesday 14th May 2019 Booked! Festival of Words, West Dunbartonshire For several years now the ‘Booked! Booked! West Dunbartonshire Festival of Words has commenced its series of events with the Alistair Pearson Lecture at the Millennium Hall, Gartocharn. This year a tribute to this extraordinary man was given by James Macrea who gave a brief […]
Read the full article: Richard Holloway ‘Waiting for the Last Bus’ review Mary Irvine
Monday, May 20, 2019 | Filed under: Book and Event Reviews, Books, Talks, Poetry Events, Mary Irvine: Writer and Philhellene
Two poems by Finola Scott: ‘Garlic’ and ‘Rhubarb’
(Image: Olga Oginskaya) In the iron-dark shop piled with companions it’s functional mottled white on white waiting contained wrapped in disguise Beneath gauze veils folded in parchment it parcels itself cloaks taste holds secrets a cupped palm’s width of flavour home on my worktop it casts wing-thin skins & explodes Finola […]
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Thursday, May 16, 2019 | Filed under: stories and poems, Sweet or sharp summer stories and poems, writers
Glasgow Writer: Mary Irvine
Mary Irvine, is a writer who hails from Yorkshire but has made her home near Glasgow. She is involved in numerous projects writing short stories, collaborating in producing local history pamphlets about Dumbarton with the illustrator Anne Marshall. Mary also works tirelessly promoting other authors through the many literary events she initiates and organises. Her […]
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Tuesday, May 14, 2019 | Filed under: Mary Irvine: Writer and Philhellene, writers
Onion by Leela Soma – vegetable inspired poetry
Onion A perfect bulb of crystalline beauty growing in the darkness of the earth petal by petal, gentle stalks of green showing up in the sun, a promise of a taste to enhance cuisines around the world. A humble root vegetable makes us tear up with no hurt, reveals no core, layer upon layer peeled […]
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Mum’s Favourite Flowers by Mussie Abbasi Harrison
Mother’s Favourite Flowers It’s the season of roses Their sweet smell lingers in your memory, Mum Beautiful, fragrant, red roses bringing love, happiness and peace. White blossoms – fresh, cool and pure And yellow roses their joyful fragrance spreading sunshine Roses bring a smile to my face…Mum’s favourite flowers Mussie Abbasi Harrison
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Monday, April 29, 2019 | Filed under: Sweet or sharp summer stories and poems
Flowers – poems by Leela Soma
Jewels of summer A glance from the car at the traffic light My eyes widen at the jewel strewn scene Purple and white crocus, narcissi bright Like amethysts and diamonds that shine. Green grass with moist sun-touched dew Like glitter sparkling, under the bare tree. A north wind whips gusts strong The infant buds defiant, […]
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Tuesday, April 23, 2019 | Filed under: Leela Soma writing and blogging, stories and poems, Sweet or sharp summer stories and poems, Writing
Aye Write 2019! Sara Sheridan introduces Anne Griffin and Anstey Harris
Friday, 22nd March 2019 Mitchell Library Review by Mary Irvine The two authors being introduced were Anne Griffin and Anstey Harris. Both in the fifties, each has recently published her first novel. Anne Griffin is an Irish novelist living in Ireland. She has won recognition for her previous writings but ‘When All Is Said’ is […]
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Sunday, April 7, 2019 | Filed under: Aye Write Book Festival 2019, Book and Event Reviews, Books, Talks, Poetry Events, Mary Irvine: Writer and Philhellene
Aye Write: Tribes of Glasgow review by Pat Byrne
I went along to Aye Write at The Mitchell Library to hear Stephen Millar and Alan McCredie talk about their book ‘Tribes of Glasgow’ (Luath Press) The book arose out of the writer Stephen Millar’s quest to rediscover Glasgow and capture its essence. Born in Glasgow but having been brought up in and lived in […]
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Saturday, March 30, 2019 | Filed under: Aye Write Book Festival 2019, Book and Event Reviews, Books, Talks, Poetry Events
Aye Write 2019, Tom Shields review by Mary Irvine
Aye Write Festival 2019 Tom Shields Mitchell Library Sunday, 24th March 1.15 p.m. One of the many things I love about Glasgow and its people is the humour, the banter and, at the above event, I was not disappointed. Tom Shields is perhaps best known for the humorous ‘Tom Shields’ Diary’ which appeared in ‘The […]
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Tuesday, March 26, 2019 | Filed under: Aye Write Book Festival 2019, Book and Event Reviews, Books, Talks, Poetry Events, Mary Irvine: Writer and Philhellene
Aye Write: Kamal Ahmed: The Life and Times of a Very British Man review Mary Irvine
Aye Write Festival Friday, 22nd March, 2019 Royal Concert Hall The main theme of Kamal’s presentation was the notion of being British. What is it that makes anyone British? What is identity? Kamal’s mother was white English, his father Sudanese, making Kamal mixed race or half-caste in the parlance of the70s/80s when mixed marriages were […]
Aye Write 2019: ‘It’s Not About the Burqa’ Mariam Khan, Amna Saleem’ review Mary Irvine
Aye Write Festival 2019 3 p.m. Sunday, 17th March, Mitchell library It’s Not About the Burqa: Muslim Women on Faith, Feminism, Sexuality and Race – Mariam Khan, Amna Saleem When, in 2016, Mariam Khan read David Cameron’s comment that linked the radicalization of Muslim men to the ‘traditional submissiveness’ of Muslim women, she felt she should […]
Saturday, March 23, 2019 | Filed under: Aye Write Book Festival 2019, Book and Event Reviews, Books, Talks, Poetry Events, Mary Irvine: Writer and Philhellene
Aye Write 2019: Henry VIII and the Men that Made Him Tracy Borman review by Mary Irvine
Aye Write Festival 2019 3 p.m. Saturday, 16th March, Mitchell library On her first visit to Glasgow this accomplished speaker and author of several books on the Tudor period held a sixty plus audience in thrall – in the nicest possible way – as she brought to life a different, more sympathetic, perhaps a better […]
Thursday, March 21, 2019 | Filed under: Aye Write Book Festival 2019, Book and Event Reviews, Books, Talks, Poetry Events
I Deserve This – a poem for Christmas by Calum Maclean
The talented Glasgow poet Calum Maclean reveals his thoughts on Christmas. I Deserve This I must’ve been the architect of some outrageous larceny, my henchmen thieving priceless jewels delivered to me personally. Presumably, I used that swag to fund an act of treachery, facilitated shady deals, created instability, ensured elections swung my way, indulged in […]
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Monday, January 28, 2019 | Filed under: Calum Maclean – poet and aspiring writer, Christmas Poems , Stories and Winter Tales, stories and poems, Writing for the Festive Season
Frohe Weihnachten – a Christmas Poem by Brian Whittingham
FROHE WEIHNACHTEN (My Christmas poem for friends old and new.) On Christmas Eve, mum softly sang Stille Nacht. Busy with final preparations. Scotch pine, I recall her telling dad. Best for keeping its needles. She clipped red candles onto green sprigs, placed small bowls of walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts at the base of the tree. […]
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Friday, January 25, 2019 | Filed under: Christmas Poems , Stories and Winter Tales, Writing for the Festive Season
Bluid Muin – Lunar Eclipse by Finola Scott
By Finola Scott
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Monday, January 21, 2019 | Filed under: stories and poems
Some Wintertime Poems by Finola Scott
Darkening So the Darkness approaches, I could talk of enveloping black the rip and reveal of the veil stripped […]
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Friday, January 18, 2019 | Filed under: Christmas Poems , Stories and Winter Tales, stories and poems, Writing for the Festive Season
Goldie by Pat Byrne
There’s a small glen not far from our house. On a good day I go up there to read my paper. It’s quiet in the mornings apart from the odd person out walking their dog. Sometimes I sit for a while and watch the rabbits or maybe a fox – there tends to be more […]
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Wednesday, December 26, 2018 | Filed under: Seasonal Stories and Poems by Glasgow Writers, stories and poems
Glasgow Writers: Tom Leonard
Sadly Tom Leonard died today, 21 December, 2018. Wonderful poet and fascinating ‘citizen of the world’. PennSound Podcast: Tom Leonard in Glasgow 1978 Some Memories of Tom Leonard (1944 – 2018) – Richie McCaffery Tom Leonard – Glasgow Poet I admire Tom Leonard’s writing, his passion, his love of language and his fight against various […]
Govanhill; no single-ends by Ian R. Mitchell
The Talk Govanhill is almost certainly the most intact area of working-class tenement housing left in Glasgow. Apart from on its north-eastern fringes, very few of the four storey blocks dating from the later nineteenth century have been demolished, and the grid-plan of the streets remains exactly as it was laid out over 100 years […]
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Wednesday, November 14, 2018 | Filed under: Ian Mitchell, Walks in Glasgow
Tarnished Jewels, U.S.A.’s Public Lands Under Trump by Ian R. Mitchell
Ian R Mitchell, author of Encounters in the American Mountain West, examines the issues facing the USA’s public lands under Donald Trump’s presidency MANY PEOPLE, both in the United States and abroad, view the country’s National Parks as the jewel in its somewhat tarnished environmental crown. Travelling through the USA – especially in the staggeringly […]
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Tuesday, November 13, 2018 | Filed under: Ian Mitchell
Reading Palms by Stephen Watt
Reading Palms As child, I conceptualised trolls beneath where the tolls were stationed, swiping seaweed-sticky fingers at cars commuting from Erskine, dragging all inside to the bottom of the Clyde then gorging on their bones. Such a little monster’s vision. Growing, the creatures faded leaving the bridge to sketch an impression on my young mind. […]
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Sunday, October 28, 2018 | Filed under: stories and poems
Poetry: Lahore, I am coming by Rizwan Akhtar
Rizwan Akhtar works as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan. He completed his PhD in postcolonial literature from the University of Essex. His poetry has been published in the the UK and countries throughout the world including: Canada, India, New Zealand and U.S.A. Poems from Rizwan Akhtar’s first collection ‘Lahore, […]
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Monday, October 22, 2018 | Filed under: Poetry, stories and poems
Autumn Makes Me Sad by Muriel Baker
Autumn Makes Me Sad Seasonally Associated Disorder Referred to as SAD by those who think they know, that a little lack of sunshine makes us feel like forty degrees below. It’s a chemical imbalance. Think of hibernating mammals. We have the same inclination. So until the clocks change to longer days. It will be my […]
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Wednesday, October 3, 2018 | Filed under: Seasonal Stories and Poems by Glasgow Writers, stories and poems
A Story for International Day of Peace by Katie Stepek
I’d learned something of the incredible history of the Stepek family when I heard Martin Stepek speak at the Sikoski Polish Club in Glasgow a number of years ago. This year on International Day of Peace, 21st September, 2018, I read a very moving article written by his daughter Katie it brings home the plight […]
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Tuesday, September 25, 2018 | Filed under: Writing
Three Haibun by Robin Lloyd-Jones
Autumn Trail I walk a narrow track under miles of beech and oak. Strands of gold and red flare like forest fires amongst the greens. Bark steams when touched by the long-fingered sun. But the sky is darkening. Canyons, cliffs, mossed walls Submerged in wooded gloom Fathoms from the […]
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Friday, September 21, 2018 | Filed under: stories and poems, Writing
