An Evening With Jim Carruth, Waterstones Sauchiehall Street
Thursday 26 February, 2026, 7pm to 9pm
Waterstones, 153-157 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3EW
Celebrate the launch of ‘Knockan’, a moving new novel-in-verse, by Jim Carruth Glasgow Makar.
In remote Assynt, where the past is recreated from rock and bone, a crofter and her estranged daughter search for some common ground in their annual week together. Rooted in the landscape and geology of North-West Scotland, this beautifully written and heart-breaking novel-in-verse is an original and powerful exploration of how our lived experience weighs on us, intimately told through the fracturing and repair of a mother and daughter relationship.
“Powerful, spare and heart-breaking, Jim Carruth’s new narrative poem centres on geology and fossils as he explores the deep emotional life of two women confronting their past amidst the savage beauty of Assynt. Layered and astute, it shows the crofter’s elemental struggle to survive alongside their livestock and how the scars of the past will keep breaking open until its effect on the present is acknowledged. Flora and fauna shine out of the snowy expanse of the page as Carruth mines that white space to express the silences around his acute observations.” – Martina Evans
“Jim Carruth’s poems sing off the page in a ballad taken up by two voices, crackling with a tension that is echoed in the land” – Imtiaz Dharker
“The words worked like the scant intimate points we connect with in an otherwise overwhelming landscape. It left me with a quiet, moving confirmation that love – like the land – is shaped and misshaped not by ideals but by pressure and accumulation. – Cynan Jones
In conversation with publisher Duncan Lockerbie, Jim will be reading from and discussing the book before signing copies.
This section: Books, Talks, Poetry and Creative Writing Events, What's On Glasgow West End: cinema, clubs, theatre, music, events, festivals, community and more
Related Pages
- The Scotland Channel presents Hillhead Hoolie
- Heritage Festival West Dunbartonshire- Speakeasy
- Paintings on Railings at West Fest
- Westfest 2026 – Step into the Arlington Baths
- Creative Heritage Cafe – Dalmuir
- The Wizard of the Kremlin at GFT
- Children’s Walk for Gaza, Glasgow Green
- WestFest 2026: Full Programme Announced
- Everbody to Kenmure Street at GFT
- Connected Community Talk: Stolen Stories
- National Theatre Live: All My Sons
- Old Kilpatrick Graveyard, Walk and Talk
- Foraging Walk at The Saltings, Old Kilpatrick
- Writing Short Stories like Agnes Owens with Kirstin Innes
- Mayday: That Sinking Feeling, University of Glasgow – live performance
- Book Launch: The History of Working-Class Courtship, Marriage and Divorce in Scotland, 1855-1939
- Celebrating the Music of John Martyn
- Responding to Alasdair Gray’s ‘Lanark’ University of Glasgow
- Could you open your home and heart to a guide dog puppy, and help change a life?
- California Schemin at GFT